The Half That You See by Rebecca Rowland (best summer reads .TXT) 📕

entered the first bar he found. Sherriff Street, it was called. Fetid beer assaulted his nose, but he pushed through and asked for a vodka martini with Balkan.

“Must’ve been some day,” said the bartender. “We don’t carry anything that strong. How about Grey Goose? No upcharge.” His eyes were rather like an owl’s, and his belly was a stainless-steel beer keg whose scuffs and dents said it had seen better days.

Sam threw it back and ordered another.

The sixth one was the charm. He could no longer see straight.

He called an Uber, but the driver was a spider. Two of the eight hairy legs kept creeping toward the back seat. Sam swatted them away. Each time, the mustached driver frowned into his rearview mirror. He suddenly stopped the car and told Sam to get out, so he stumbled the rest of the way to Margot’s, which, thankfully, was only a mile or so.

There, things got worse.

Margot’s grave was a yawing hole. Certain there’d be an open coffin in the bottom, Sam crawled toward it and peered over the edge.

Empty.

He stumbled to the groundskeeper’s hut, but the keeper wasn’t around.

In no mood for freaks or spiders or Jesus-judges, Sam lay down at the edge of the hole and—after picking out the rocks and shale—fell asleep with his head on the pile of dirt.

“Sam.” The familiar voice woke him.

It was dark. Sam felt around for his bed, but all he touched was prickly grass and knobby dirt. Cicadas played their eerie songs from the few trees scattered around. Margot called his name again, this time with more annoyance. She told him to wake up already.

“Margot?” Sam rubbed his eyes, but it was like being in muddy water, in the dark.

Something cool and slimy squirmed over his neck. He yelped and shot up to a crouching position, hands waving back and forth like radar.

“Sam!” Strong hands gripped his shoulders, and the sting of a slap sent his head sharply to the left. “Look at me.”

It was Margot.

But not.

And horrible.

One of her eyes hung from the optic nerve. Little white worms dotted her face and writhed in her tangled hair. Her cracked lips seeped yellow pus, and her skin was marbled in the colors of death: blue and yellow and black.

Sam threw up an arm to shield himself. “You’re what I’ve been talking to, all this time?”

“You were careless with the mortar.”

“Somebody left nitroglycerin in it. It wasn’t my fault.”

“It’s never your fault, is it Sam?”

Margot was a cry-wolf sort of woman, full of drama, always something wrong. So that day, when she cried out from the bedroom she couldn’t feel her left arm, Sam told her he’d be right there. He meant after he finished the chapter. Her second and third calls sounded theatrical, and Sam was not down for playing nursemaid to Margot’s hypochondria. When she stopped calling, he figured she fell asleep and congratulated himself on putting up healthy boundaries.

The squad asked what happened, and Sam told them he’d found her that way, skipping the part about her numerous requests for assistance. She’d been trying for the cell phone on the end table, judging by where she was found on the floor. Didn’t Sam hear anything? they asked.

No. He was asleep in his recliner.

All the times he visited her and she never brought it up before. Sam figured it was water under the bridge.

“Whatever you do, Sam, don’t look in a mirror.”

That was all she said. Then she crawled back in the hole and with grimy hands and broken fingernails, pulled the dirt back over her in the body-shaped pile.

Sam hadn’t paid himself much mind since he began seeing alterations in everybody else. Shaving was a focus on his stubble. Combing was a focus on his hair. Teeth, on teeth. He’d not actually looked at himself. Not once.

At home, Sam put off looking in the mirror for exactly five minutes. But he had to know. Margot knew he’d look. She wanted him to. Would he have swirly eyes? Spiked teeth? Devil horns? Would he look like a baby? Like Stupid Pregnancy Girl?

He slunk into the bathroom but left the light off. After a few deep, cleansing breaths, he flipped the light switch…

There he was.

In half a second, he plunged the room back into darkness.

Sam startled so hard he flipped and fell, apparently out of a bed and onto a tile floor. A white-hot pain in the top of his hand and the crash told him he’d toppled his IV. Everything was black. Totally and utterly black. Sam waved his hand in his face and accidentally smacked himself. The floor was cold and a little gritty. He called for help, relieved at the squeak of rubber soles approaching.

They put him back and spoke soothing words.

A doctor came. Sam felt a squeeze on his arm. “I have some hard news.”

“Couldn’t be worse than what I just went through.”

“I’m sorry?”

Sam waved his question away.

The doctor cleared his throat. “Sam, the accident caused…” He explained corneal lacerations and shattered lenses in extreme minutiae, and Sam found himself losing patience.

“Can’t you just spit it out? I’m not following.”

The doctor sighed. “I don’t know how to put this gently…You’re blind. No restorative options. A social worker’s coming this afternoon to talk you through your transition strategy.” The doctor blithered on about living a rich and fulfilling life, learning braille, support groups blah blah—

“—Wait. I’m blind? Forever?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“Nothing else?”

The doctor didn’t say anything.

“Doctor?”

“Sorry. I should know better. I was shaking my head. No. Nothing.”

Sam exhaled. “That’s not so bad.”

The doctor patted Sam’s arm. “I wish everybody took hard news like you, Sam. Most patients won’t accept the truth.”

Sam choked out a joyless laugh then sank into his pillow and stared sightlessly ahead. His other senses were already adapting. The steady beep of his pulse monitor, the citrus smell of a fruit basket, the buzz of nurses at their station in the hall, the traffic outside. The sun must be out, for a shaft of