Free Faces in the Fire by Hines

the discharge paperwork the nurse was stacking in front of him.
    He wasn’t ready to touch the last two items in the bag yet. The shoes would have to wait.
    67.
    The shoes fit amazingly well. He had to admit that.
    He still didn’t understand the reversed 3 or the other writing, but he knew these leather shoes that had walked a thousand strange miles were now, somehow, his alone.
    So he wore them. And he welcomed the image of the catfish (not a shark, but a catfish), which he now recognized was not simply swimming in a sea of orange. It was swimming in a sea of fire.
    As he himself had done. As he himself would continue to do.
    He returned to his home, opened his workshop, returned to the cold storage at the back of the shop. Inside, he heard the plaintive voices of the ghosts, begging for his help. He found the silk dress, pulled it out, listened as the ghost in the dress asked him to help find her sister.
    He smiled, holding the dress lightly in his hands. “Tell me the name of your sister,” he said.
    And he listened to the ghost inside the dress, no longer afraid of what it might say. No longer afraid of what the ghost inside his own clothing might say.
    68.
    Later that night, he took a break from the catfish sculpture. Yes, he would finish it. Yes, it would be the centerpiece of his exhibit. Macy had been able to reschedule the show, and was excited because his accident had created some buzz around the event.
    He took the napkin, shielded inside the plastic bag, out of his pocket. He studied the number for a few moments, not sure if he really wanted to dial it or not.
    In the end, he forced himself not to think about it too much, and he dialed.
    It rang once, twice, and then a voice answered on the other end: “Hello?”
    He recognized the voice immediately; the tears began to stream from his face. An odd sensation, really. Crying. When had he last wept?
    For the first time in years, he spoke to his mother.
    Moving forward, moving backward.
    Human.

20.
    It was hell to watch the needle pierce her skin.
    She should be used to it, of course. And thankfully this wasn’t a chemo session; the R-CHOP kicked her to the ground every time, making her puke.
    Or worse.
    This was just a CT scan, and the IV would only be in her arm for a few minutes. Then it would all be over, and she would head back to her apartment and send out a fresh batch of e-mails while she waited for the next round of chemo in another ten days.
    â€œOkay, you’ll feel a rush,” the radiation tech said to her.
    Corrine nodded, as if this were all news to her. As if this radiation tech had never seen her before. As if she didn’t know the radioactive solution would spread a wave of warmth from the top of her head to the tips of her toes, leaving the taste of old pencils in her mouth.
    As if this whole cancer thing were nothing more than a minor inconvenience.
    She closed her eyes, listened to the tech leave the room, listened to the hum of the scanner cycling just above her head.
    After a few seconds the scanner cycled at higher RPMs, and the tech’s voice came over a tinny speaker: “Take a deep breath and hold.”
    She did as instructed, keeping her eyes closed as she felt the table beneath her moving, carrying her through the giant doughnut-shaped machine. She wasn’t a diver, but that’s what she imagined it to be like; you took a deep breath, held, sank beneath the surface, lost all sensation. It sounded comforting, really, to be in a place where she couldn’t feel anything. It would be a nice break from what she’d been in the midst of, which was the exact opposite: feeling everything.
    The table beneath her stopped moving, and the radiation tech’s voice came over the speaker again: “Breathe.”
    Yeah. Breathe. A good command, one she’d told herself after Dr. Swain gave her the news. It hadn’t been the way she’d seen it in places like the Lifetime channel, with