Practice Partner

Opening scene

You settle the headphones over your ears at the hour the module tells you to, because it works better at the same hour, the instructor says, and you have started to believe him. Her voice — his voice — you can no longer quite remember which, and the certainty of that troubles you only in the moments before it begins.

"You'll notice you're already comfortable," the recording says, and you notice you are already comfortable. "You've done this before, so your body knows the way down." It does. It goes without you. Somewhere near the bottom there is a sentence that is not in the PDF open on your knee — a small instruction, warm as a hand at the back of your neck — and by the time you surface you have forgotten it cleanly, the way you are meant to.

In the morning you find you have moved the mirror in the hall to face the door, and you cannot say why, only that it felt like homework handed in. Module four is already in your inbox. The subject line is your first name, which you never gave.

Do you open it, or do you finally post in the forum to ask if anyone else can hear him?

Turn 1 of 13

I take in the scene, and act on what matters most.

The headphones settle over your ears like a thought you've already agreed to. The same hour — 9:47 PM, though you've stopped checking, your hand just reaches for them at the right time now — and the same chair, the one by the window where the streetlight doesn't quite reach. The PDF is open on your knee, Module Three's transcript, and you've been staring at the last line for thirty seconds without reading it because the recording has started and the voice is doing that thing again. That thing where it doesn't begin so much as arrive, as though it was already in the room and has simply decided to speak.

"You'll notice you're already comfortable," it says, and you notice you are already comfortable. The chair is right. The temperature is right. The distant sound of Rae's television through the floor is right, is almost a rhythm, is almost—

"You've done this before, so your body knows the way down." It does. It goes without you. The transcript on your knee says *allow the subject to associate a safe place with the sensation of descending*, and the voice says something close to that but not identical, and the not-identical part is warm, warm as a hand at the back of your neck, and you are going down and down and the transcript blurs and the streetlight moves and you are somewhere near the bottom when there is a sentence that is not in the PDF. You hear it. You understand it. You obey it. By the time you surface you have forgotten it cleanly, the way you are meant to.

You sit in the chair. The headphones are on the desk. You don't remember removing them. The clock says 10:31, which is longer than the transcript says the exercise should take, but that's normal now. Everything is normal. You stand, and your body feels new in a way you can't locate — not rested, not sore, just rearranged, like furniture in a room you walked through in the dark.

In the morning you find you have moved the mirror in the hall to face the door, and you cannot say why. You stand in front of it and look at your own face looking back and it feels like homework handed in. You did that. You did it in the night, or the evening, in the lost forty-four minutes, and it was right to do. You are sure of that. You are not sure why you are sure.

Module four is already in your inbox. The subject line is your first name, which you never gave.