She had been a regular for longer than I’d been a bartender. I’m not sure how long, but there was a faded photo of her behind the bar, and she got special treatment, the classic signs of a prized regular. Learning how to treat her was a part of my training—speak up, and only charge for every other drink. She tipped generously, and in cash, and it wasn’t until the second or third time I served her that I held her gaze long enough to notice how young she was. She had the presence of someone much older—and perhaps taller. Every time she stood up, she seemed shorter than I imagined. She was about five foot three, and twenty four years old. Her hair was dyed a cold blonde, and she wore a lot of eye makeup. She drank splits of prosecco, slowly. I’d never seen her drunk, but she was always drinking. I have no idea if she was in school, or a graduate, or what. She seemed to be a freelance something, but who knows where that guess came from. 

 

She mostly ignored me until I'd been working at the pub for three months, explaining one day that she didn’t bother getting to know new people who didn't last. It didn’t occur to me then how odd that policy was—she operated as if she knew she’d outlast you. She kept talking, the bar between us, channeling her as if it were a Ouija board. I held my breath and stayed still as she spoke, my hands motionlessly posed with a glass and polishing cloth, blinking at what I guessed were appropriate intervals. I was cautious, that first conversation, doing my utmost to seem worthy of it. I just wanted her to keep talking. 

 

My restraint was soon overthrown by her frequent questions. She wanted to know where I was from, my major, if I was dating anyone. Who from work I thought was cute. I became an open book, completely, because each answer was a chance to show her I was on her level. And I learned all I could about her, too, despite her cryptic comments and annoying habit of changing the subject. It wasn’t modesty, or shyness, that stopped her from talking about herself. In fact I think it was a concerted effort to seem mysterious. She wanted it to be one of her powers. 

​

I was a predictable target for her, if that’s what I was. Three times a week, I worked from eight until two in the morning (Tuesday, Wednesday, Saturday) and saw her most shifts. The local newspaper had a crossword, and we would do it together on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, when it was always dead slow. She would do it in pen and often got a couple wrong, which I found charming. Not much of a speller. I loved seeing her flaws, when there were any. 

​

Finally, after weeks of this, she asked what I was doing after work. I had a class at nine the next morning. I should go home and go straight to sleep. Nothing, I said hopefully, why? She smiled, holding one of two shots of Jameson I’d just poured us. Mine was warming in my own reluctant hand. She wanted to know if I'd like to go back to hers after, for a drink or whatever. Of course I did. Great. She smiled. I’ll just wait for you here. For that second and a half I worked hard to memorize her smile. We drank and talked and finally, finally it was late enough for me to get away with closing. And we were off. 

​

Unfortunately, I don’t remember how we got to the alley, exactly. We were walking down the street, already a couple blocks from the bar, when a hazy shaft of light eclipsed our path from the left. She stopped, and cocked her head in the direction of the small alleyway emitting light. I stopped with her, because we were arm-in-arm. I remember wondering, in a whiskey sort of way, what was down there glowing white, hoping vaguely for another bar. Have you been down there yet? she asked, already knowing the answer. Let’s go. 

​

Now I have to try and tell you what happened. Please agree to imagine that there is an alley in this city where nothing is like anything else. You can wander down it as far as you like, touch the glowing walls, admire their smoothness, but never reach the end and never see anything you recognize. I lost sight of her the moment she touched the light. There is no sound, because there is nothing for the soundwaves to travel through, and it’s as if your ears are filled with something soft. Your eyes sting from the light, but there’s no heat. You can reach out to try and touch whoever let you in but you won’t find them, and the fear they were the last face you’ll ever see may occur to you. Your feet become heavier and heavier with every step. The path bends and winds and you think to yourself, I've been walking for what feels like forever. Many miles will pass before the walls hiss, you don’t know the meaning of the word. 

​

You blink in the constantly increasing brightness, but it's no use. Your eyes burn to the point of itch, and something is numb but you can’t tell what. The moisture of your nose and mouth disappear, replaced by cracking dryness, but you can still smell something sharp, something chemical. Eventually you will try to turn back and even though there’s only one path, it's so bright you can’t make out the entrance. Escaping is even harder, and the journey back will feel like forever too. Dragging your feet through impossibly dense, bright space, the weight pulling at the point your arms fit into the sockets of your shoulders. The chemical smell is felt even in your eyes, which would stream tears if they could muster any, and breath fights to enter your lungs. When was the last time you looked down? Do you know what you’re treading on? Are you sure that’s air you’re breathing? It’s so quiet. Where is she? 

​

The alley has constricted to a hallway. Shimmering and gleaming. Your vision dances. When was the last time you blinked? The borders that make your body yours fray. There’s sound now—there wasn’t any before, was there? 

​

Then you can smell the road and feel the wind. You fall out of the alley into the world, a world where you’ve seen it all. But she’s gone. When I escaped, the transition was so jarring I vomited onto the pavement. Running my hands through my hair, cold and damp with sweat, I knew I was alone. She was nowhere. I don’t remember if I looked back, if there was any light left. My body marched me home, and I slept through my class the next morning, not like I cared. 

​

I stared myself down in the mirror and felt very little. I went back to the street I thought I remembered, and many others just in case, and saw nothing. No clues or hints at what I thought I’d experienced. Of course my eyes were no longer reliable. I never had her number, I didn’t know what she did, no one at the bar could help—I just had to wait. All three of my shifts passed without her appearing once. Four actually—I picked up a closing shift on Friday, stupidly hoping to catch her unawares. I found myself at the pub more and more, working or just sitting, waiting to hear the door open and for her to pull up a chair beside me. That place was the only thing I could confidently tie to her. I felt her slipping through my hands like sand. My walks home from work became more and more about finding the alley, but I never did, and in my desperation the memories surrounding our walk home that night faded. 

​

I never dared to explain what happened, to myself or anyone else. There was a feeling of metallic dread embedded in the memory, and like a fresh burn or cut, it hurt to touch. For a long time, I thought I must have done something wrong, otherwise she wouldn’t have disappeared. But she ran rampant in my thoughts, and I now prefer to believe she showed me a world I couldn’t comprehend as a prank. Her photo is still propped up between dusty pint glasses behind the bar, exhibit A in a disappearance no one is investigating. I don’t work there anymore, probably because I was so distracted I stopped being any good, but I still visit often. To be where we were, and to see what I feared was the last remnant of her existence.