I was on an operating table. I didn’t know how I got there. I remembered laying on the beach next to my brother, but that wasn’t quite right. My brother was no longer seven years old. He was twenty-nine, with an degree in oceanography.

All of that vanished from my thoughts as I became aware of someone else. Craning my neck, I tilted my head back as far as I could.

A doctor in a long white lab coat stood over me, thick-lensed glasses distorting his eyes like funhouse mirrors.

“Welcome back. We’ve been waiting for you for a long time. You’ve been in and out of here a lot but that’s all about to change. No more hopping around, like you own the place.” The doctor stated matter-of-factly. “Nurse!”

An ex-girlfriend appeared in bloody nurse’s scrubs carrying a hypodermic needle the size of a turkey-baster. Inside there were yellow-jackets buzzing irritably.

“I’ll hold him down. You deliver the dose on three.”

Hands pinned me down.

The needle touched the base of my neck.

“One.”

“Two.”

And then I woke up.