The cool chemical breeze of the air conditioner caresses my eyeballs as I stare at my switched off laptop screen. It is 6:45 pm. I tried my hardest to write today, I tried to find the motivation to type a single word, but in the end, I couldn’t even lift my hand high enough to press the power button. I’m amazed I had enough strength to drag myself to the library in the first place. I feel as though my motivation died somewhere between arriving here and seeing the Fuzzy by the emergency exit as I passed the space between the nonfiction stacks and the circulation desk looking for a seat.

I call it the Fuzzy mostly because it was the first thing that came to my head when I discovered it. Perhaps I wanted to give it a cute name in order to cope with the terror that strangles me whenever I encounter it, or could it have been my subconscious that named it: aware that its very existence, like a Planck scale object, is, shall we say, fuzzy.

I saw it for the first time last week as I was walking to the supermarket late at night. Something glistened in my peripheral vision and my eye was drawn to a shadowy garbage pile near the supermarket’s loading dock. As I squinted and tried to make out what it was, my heart leapt. Something about this thing wasn’t right.

It is not something that can be easily described, but I’ll try my best. Apparently, no one can see it but me. It isn’t a creature per se, but it has lifelike qualities. All three times it has appeared, it’s always been in the corner of my eye, and I can’t look directly at it lest my body floods with panic and my brain begins to conjure all the various things it could be rather than what it actually is. Is it a colony of nanomachines? A weapon sent here from a future timeline in which humanity fucked itself up with technology? A tear in the fabric of spacetime through which things that shouldn’t exist in this universe are leaking? All I know is, the longer I look at it, the harder and faster my heart pounds and the more its actual shape eludes me. 

Two days ago, when I last saw it, I lay awake in bed, and it had appeared where my coat was supposed to be: hanging from the door like a shed skin, its inhabitant lurking somewhere in my darkened bedroom just beyond my field of vision. Its shape remained the same except for the edges vibrating like chainsaw teeth, and its center buzzed with harsh, granular cancer waves which radiated outward, warming me to the core as though some kind of bristly creature had crawled down my throat and into my stomach, its alien metabolic system generating sickly heat. I tried to meditate like my therapist taught me; tried to focus on my breath, to acknowledge how the Fuzzy was making me feel and let those feelings go, but the anxiety was too strong. Anxiety has been winning every battle in my mind lately, so I’ve stopped trying to fight it.

            In the library, I manage to lift my hand a little bit, but knowing that the Fuzzy is likely still lurking nearby, waiting for me to pass it, all I can do is gaze at my half visible reflection in the black rectangle of the screen. 

My reflected face is distorted, as if I had stuck my finger in the screen and swirled it around. My mouth is locked in a perpetual grimace like a childhood deformity corrected by surgery too late. I swallow the hot slugs of saliva gathered at the back of my throat, their bodies leaving a trail of slime as they slither past my inflamed tonsils. I don’t recognize the eyes staring back at me. Are they supposed to be mine? The pupils, floating like bloated ticks in pools of milk, completely out of context, are too black to belong to a human being. 

The cambrian shine of those pupils conjures deep ocean thoughts, and my hand shoots up to slam the laptop shut. I half expect to see the Fuzzy where the table across from me should be, but there is only a red-haired young woman in a beige sweater seated there, hunched over her work, completely oblivious to me and the torrent of serrated thoughts crashing through my mind. I need to leave the library. There is no way I’m going to get anything done at this point. I can try and take a different path to the exit, perhaps through the graphic novel section, but there is no guarantee the Fuzzy won’t appear in a new location. The times and places in which it appears have been unpredictable.

My bones pop and crack as I roll out of my seat. I slide my laptop into its case, zip it up and stuff it into my backpack, which I hoist onto my shoulders, its weight tugging on my spinal cord and cortisol-addled muscles. I glance in every direction, not only looking out for the Fuzzy, but for any people who might be around, blocking a potential path. Excluding the path I took to get here, I have two options. 

The stacks, which I can’t see from here, are a narrow maze which could make not only a close encounter with another person very possible, but an encounter with the Fuzzy as well. I would not want either scenario to unfold in such close quarters. Then there is the computer lab by the bathrooms which is adjacent to the fireplace area where I am seated. There are a more than a few people in the computer lab at the moment, but there is no sign of the Fuzzy. I know this is strange to admit, but sometimes I can’t decide which is worse: the Fuzzy or other human beings.

The red-haired woman stands. My eyes trace the spirals of her autumn sunset locks from the top of her head all the way down to the waist of a pair of blue yoga pants so tight that, before I know it, my gaze has meandered south to the outline of her ass crack: a curved line segment like the connecting point between two conjoined soap bubbles. My face burns with hot shame and I peel my eyes away faster than a racecar at the wave of a checkered flag. I look down at my hands, the floor, the label on my closed laptop, anywhere but directly in front of me. When I look back up again, she’s packing up her stuff. Did she catch me looking? Did she feel my leering eyes on her and decide to move in order to get away from the creepy-ass unc lurking behind her, undressing her with his cis het male gaze?

  I know intellectually that I’m the farthest thing from a creep, pervert, weirdo or whatever derogatory name I can hurl at myself, but my obsessive-compulsive disorder tends to label every single intrusive thought I have as evidence that I’m a terrible person. What just happened with the redhead is a prime example of this. My presence was more than likely not a factor at all in her decision to move her seat. She probably never even noticed me, yet my OCD has me convinced that I’m the center of the universe: that everyone around me is watching my every move and judging me harshly.

Just then, a thought occurs to me. What if I was to dispel the anxiety surrounding this whole situation by striking up a conversation with this woman like my therapist suggested? All I would have to do is ask her what time it is or something like that. Then I could get a gauge on whether or not she feels any sort of way about me. More than likely, she will end up being completely neutral or perhaps even friendly and happy to help.

I cup my hands around the sides of my mouth and call out to her as loudly as I think I can get away with in a library.

“Excuse me, miss?”

Without even turning around, she flicks a lock of orange hair over her shoulder, adjusts her bag and proceeds to walk towards the stacks.

“Miss, I was just wondering if—”

“Shh!”

I swivel my head to the right and spot a librarian with her index finger held to her lips, glaring at me.

“Sorry about that,” I sit back down, cheeks burning with embarrassment, and study the swirls of wood grain in the surface of the table. The redhead ignored me. There was no question about it. It was obvious that she heard me. Her body language said it all. She caught me staring at her before. She thinks I’m a creep. There’s no denying it. The librarians, no, every woman in this library is probably talking about me. Keep an eye on the guy in the trucker hat, he’s a weirdo. Women are vigilant. They talk to each other: keep each other informed about the activities of strange men. I fucked up. I need to get out of here as soon as possible before someone makes a TikTok of me and I get cancelled.

A thought flashes into my mind. I’m following the redhead into the parking lot. I see her locks fluttering in the breeze as I close in on her. I grab her by the hair and smash her face into her car window. Her limp body slumps to the asphalt and the blood left behind stains the broken glass as though the car were a cathedral built to honor not a benevolent sky daddy, but a cosmic leech.

I remove my hat and raise my fists to my head in preparation to pound the distressing thought out, but then I remember that I’m in public and I’ve probably drawn enough attention to myself for one day. 

According to my therapist, ordinary people have thoughts about horrific things like raping babies and stabbing their parents all the time, but somehow, they know that these are just thoughts and do not reflect their core values and are able to dispatch them as easily as one would a fly with a newspaper. Walking, working, eating and shopping in public have been ordeals for me for years, and now that the Fuzzy is a thing I have to deal with on top of my OCD, life has essentially become a two-pronged war.

Knowing of the Fuzzy’s existence is like knowing that a gun turret is hidden somewhere in your house that will mow you down as soon as you trip its sensors. A gun turret that moves to a new location whenever you happen to spot it before it shoots you. Life for me is a war against an elusive and unknown enemy.

 I pack up my stuff and decide to walk down the graphic novel stacks. Perhaps being surrounded by cool artwork will bring temporary comfort: a reprieve from being perpetually aware that a person could emerge from around a corner at any time, a person who may have seen me sitting there at the desk staring at the screen or perhaps heard me call out to the redhead, a 30-something-year-old man dressed in a metal band shirt, and be thinking to themselves: oh, it’s that creepy guy. Someone should really check his hard drive because he gives me the heebie-jeebies. 

My imagination was always a fertile womb capable of birthing wonders, and that’s what made me such a great writer, but lately that womb has been stricken with cancer and is now squeezing out abominations.

The moment I step into the graphic novel aisle, I immediately regret my decision. Sitting on one of the shelves at my eye level with its cover facing outward is a book illustrated by one of the great masters of horror manga, Tetsuya Abe. Its title is Kintsugi Man and it follows a Japanese man living in America whose mental illness leads him to attempt suicide with a handgun. The gunshot does not end up killing him, though it destroys most of his face. Unable to afford insurance or pay a hospital bill, the man sits in his apartment waiting to die until he is visited by a demon who offers to fix his face and his life, but only if he makes a pact to carry out the demon’s will. The demon gathers the various pieces of the man’s face and head strewn across the floor and pastes them back together with a golden substance he claims is made from the wings of angels he hunted for sport.

The cover of this single-volume manga features an illustration of the titular Kintsugi Man, his face an uncanny patchwork job that has always struck fear in me every time I viewed it. His right eye especially, set in his face completely wrong, emanates piss warm cancer waves much like the Fuzzy. Rather than try to meditate or label my thoughts, I quickly pivot on my heels so as not to face this monstrosity. Perhaps the Fuzzy reveals itself to select people and Abe was one of them. Perhaps he was inspired to draw this character based what little observations of the Fuzzy he could gather.

I exit the graphic novel aisle the way I came and make my way through the travel book aisle. I bite my lip and pray that there will be no strange book covers or people waiting to ambush me down this path. It occurs to me that no one is browsing the travel book aisle because no one around here can afford to travel. As to why this random thought popped into my head, I have no idea. The thoughts that cycle through my mind are about as random and inexplicable as the Fuzzy itself.

I breathe a sigh of relief as I emerge from the travel book aisle without encountering a soul. A mom about my age and her kid are standing at the information desk talking to one of the librarians. The mother and child are facing away from me, so they won’t notice if I sneak by quietly enough. I put one foot in front of the other, and before I know it, I’m past the metal detectors and standing in the lobby, facing the sliding glass doors leading outside that open with the familiar whooshing sound. 

It’s now 7:00 pm and there are only five or six cars in the parking lot. Off to my right, within the library’s atrium, is a life-size fiberglass statue of a cow, gifted by the town. There’s a sensor set up connected to a speaker, which makes the cow moo whenever you pass by. This simple novelty never fails to make me chuckle a bit in this world where every day is doomsday according to the news.

I walk past the cow, but it doesn’t moo this time. Sometimes this happens; the sensor will fail to trigger, and you’ll have to wave your hand in front of it for your greeting. I try it, and it still doesn’t moo. 

I scan the entire parking lot looking for signs of the Fuzzy, but I don’t see anything. I make a beeline for the stairs leading up to the sidewalk, but just as I’m about to cross the perimeter of the parking lot, I stop in my tracks. I sense someone or something behind me. It’s close. So close in fact, the hairs on the back of my neck are heating up and the genetic makeup of my skin is beginning to froth and bubble erratically, mimicking the unpredictable constitution of the Fuzzy. Behind me, the cow moos.

The electronic moos are incessant, distorted, with a pained undertone one can only associate with a piece of livestock pinned to the ground in a field, balls sliced off, bolt gun pointed at its cranium. I clutch my hand to my heart, a mess of overgrown nerves and misfiring electrical signals spazzing out. Not knowing what else to do, anything except turn around and face whatever I might see behind me, I sit down cross-legged on the asphalt to meditate. 

It is only after sitting there for several minutes, breathing shakily in through my nose and out though my mouth, that I detect the presence of other humans, their shadows looming behind me. An elderly man with a cane shuffles past en route to his car. A middle-aged woman gets into her SUV, starts the ignition and drives off without giving me a second glance. Is it true what my therapist has been telling me for years: that most people are not paying attention to me, that I am not the center of the world and that pretty much everyone only cares about themselves and how they appear to other people? Observing how both of these individuals completely ignored me as I sat there meditating in the parking lot like a weirdo must have been a comfort to my psyche because I feel my heart rate slow and its spasmodic activity begin to calm.

I meditate for way longer than I thought I would, but as I do, people pass by without so much as a glance. I sit there and wait for the inevitable ‘sir?’ from the library staff, but it never comes. I haven’t meditated since I was in college. Fear of confronting intrusive thoughts is what has kept me from doing it all these years, but now that I finally broke down and did it, I feel freer than I have in a long time. I could sit here all night and no one would bat an eye. So free, so at one with the earth.

Having regained enough of the earth’s power despite the asphalt blocking any direct line from my body to the soil, I rise from the ground feeling much better than I did earlier today. 

There was no evil presence behind me, and perhaps there never was a Fuzzy to begin with. Could it be that my paranoia and social anxiety have been manifesting as hallucinations? I may need to talk to my psychiatrist and get on a new medication. A wave of dread washes over me at the prospect of being even more medicated than I already am and perhaps losing my ability to write creatively, but then again, haven’t my visions of the Fuzzy been negating my creative abilities since I first started having them?  

I go to scratch an itch on my scalp and realize that I left the library so hastily I forgot my hat. Hopefully it is still there at the desk where I was sitting. If not, they probably have it for me at the lost-and-found. It is my Sigil of Baphomet hat, one of my favorites and probably a contributing reason as to why I think people think I’m weird or scary. But I love that hat, and from now on, knowing that most people probably don’t give a shit what I wear as long as it’s not grossly offensive, I’m going to wear what I want.

I spin around to face the library entrance and strut towards it. The cow continues to moo as a couple with their three children exit the library, and the kids dance around the cow like it’s their fun uncle entertaining them.

I make it about halfway across the parking lot when something in the little free library just outside the entrance catches my eye. My first thought is that the Fuzzy is making an appearance yet again, but that can’t be. The Fuzzy isn’t real. My perception of reality is simply being distorted by something like prodromal schizophrenia. It occurs to me that the thing I’m seeing isn’t like the Fuzzy at all: I’m able to look directly at it without experiencing the abject fear the Fuzzy triggers in me, and for some reason, whether correctly or incorrectly, my brain has flagged it as notable compared to the objects surrounding it.

It’s hard to explain, but it feels like this object, while not a source of fear for me (yet), is notable because my distorted perceptions are spreading to categories of objects that weren’t affected before. I don’t really know how schizophrenia works, but perhaps perception disorders are like viruses: more and more categories of stimuli become infected until the sufferer’s entire world is an undiscernible surrealist art exhibit full of horrors torturing all five senses. OCD operates in a similar viral fashion, though it spreads among categories of thoughts rather than visual and auditory stimuli. Could my OCD somehow have leapt fence into the realm of my sensory perception? Is such a thing possible? That would mean it’s not schizophrenia at all, but severely mutated OCD.

I lift the latch and pull open the door of the LFL. The thing I saw is apparently a white Post-it note stuck to a particular book. The note is inscribed with the number 34 in black sharpie, and the book, coincidentally (or not), is a psychiatry textbook. Assuming the number inscribed on the note is a page number, possibly containing information that was important to whoever had written the note, I turn to page 34 only to be greeted by a diagram of the human brain. At first, it seems like a normal diagram, outlining the parts significant to OCD and how they interact to perpetuate said disorder. However, the hypothalamus has been scribbled out with black marker and replaced with one simple, cryptic phrase: don’t look up.

A shiver surges up my spine, and I drop the book. 

If I gaze at my feet for the rest of my life, I won’t have to face what awaits me.

People might look at me funny though. Or maybe they won’t. It doesn’t matter. Maybe if I stand here long enough, someone will call the police and have me taken away. Then I’ll be forced to face whatever it is no matter what. Knowing this, I might as well get it over with, like a band aid. A quick ending or perhaps a new beginning. The beginning of a new nightmare, but a beginning all the same. 

I place my hands in my pockets, swallow the acrid slugs of phlegm that have accumulated in my throat and allow my eyes to drift slowly upward.

            What I see is not surprising at all, or perhaps it is the most surprising thing in the world: a girl wrapped in a black funnel web choking and sputtering as millions of spiders crawl down her throat? A pillar of salt, the mirrored surface, reflecting that I have been transformed into something far more hideous than a pillar of salt? A fuzzy mass of quantum fuckery from out of which a thing with no eyes is stepping, unhinging its jaws like a python, preparing to consume me whole? 

What I see is all of these things yet none of them. The universe contained within the darkening eyes of a cow as blood cascades from the hole in her head. The cold, black, lifeless gaze of space as it bears down upon you, reminding you that after you die, there is nothing. Jesus, like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, was a lie. Life exists between two gulfs of infinite nothing, like a pair of lobster eyes watching the chef’s knife descend, thinking of nothing in particular.

Nothing in particular is what I’m thinking of now as my feet give out and I collapse right there on the sidewalk outside the library. Nothing in particular is what I’m thinking as the red-haired woman in the blue yoga pants appears above me and I hear her voice for the first time. 

“Sir, are you okay?” 

Nothing in particular is what I continue to think as she calls 911 and the ambulance arrives, as they strap me to a gurney and load me in. I’ll have no choice but to think of nothing in particular as they bring me to the psychiatric triage tank downtown, as they evaluate me, and as I wait in a dingy green room for them to decide which hospital I’ll be going to this time. Nothing in particular is what I’ll be saying when I arrive there, and they strip me of my clothes and my freedom. Nothing in particular is what I’ll probably be doing for the foreseeable future as they find a new medication for me. 

I’m sure I’ll be feeling all warm and fuzzy soon enough.