The water began to swirl. Slowly at first, but quickly picking up speed until, within moments, I found myself in a rushing whirlpool.

  Round and round I went, caught in a torrent so powerful, so inescapable that resistance was not an option. It might have been fun, I thought, were it not the kind of cheeky plot twist this System seemed to thrive on.

  I was being pulled down toward some unknowable center. Like the sentient ants I used to sublet my bathroom to, I could only marvel at the callousness as I, too, circled the drain.

  As the water pulled me under, sending me hurtling toward the pitch-black abyss, my toga was torn to shreds. Wherever I was headed next, I’d be arriving as nature made me, dermatological anomalies and all.

  “Meg!” I shouted, spinning into the darkness. “Meg! Why!”

  My words echoed back to me, falling flat and futile. I couldn’t see a thing.

  **

  After a darkness so all-encompassing, an obliteration of self so total that I’d almost gotten over my parents’ divorce, a small point of light appeared in the distance. It was growing larger by the second.

  My sense of time and place returned, along with some disastrous ideas about the nature of intimacy. I had the sensation I was being shot through a tube, hurtling with incredible speed toward the light at the end.

  More and more it came into focus, along with the faint hum of conversation and the unmistakable smell of MegaBrand? Dish Soap: “Because in the World of Today… It’s Hard Enough to Keep Your Hands Clean.”

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  It wasn’t like me to get nostalgic, but as I neared the end of the tube, I felt an unexpected tinge of relief. At least I was hurtling like a wet missile of flesh into somewhere with the familiar trappings of home.

  **

  I shot out of the end of the tube with an undignified sound that no onomatopoeia could possibly convey, flipping through the air with balletic grace befitting a much less naked man.

  For a heartbeat I hung there, weightless, suspended over the kitchen sink of a classic suburban home. My arc carried me past the countertops, over the steaming dinner plates, and deposited me, as if expected, into the open chair at the head of the table with a meaty plunk.

  “There you are, honey,” said the woman seated next to me, warm and nonplussed. “Kids, your father’s home. Now you can start eating.”

  The children, vague shapes in my still-dazed vision, dug in as if nothing strange had happened. The woman’s gaze was still fixed on me.

  In a voice low enough that only I could hear, she entreated me softly, more worried than chastising. “I wish you’d call if you’re going to be late.”

  I blinked a few times. The contours of the stranger’s face emerged from the blur.

  She was gorgeous. Just my type. An amalgam, really, of everything I liked in a woman. Self-possessed but subtly haunted. Beautiful the way the number six is. Jaunty.

  I began to panic.

  “I, uh… Well, you know...”

  My body, still dripping wet, slid against the chair, nearly sending me careening to the floor. I struggled to find the words.

  “Where, uh. I was…”

  How could I possibly explain to her what I was trying to say? She was a great gal—a pip—that much was clear. But what combination of concepts could possibly convey the enormity of my confusion?

  Tongue-tied, almost choking on my discomfort, I blurted out the most loaded syllable I could.

  “Meg,” I finally managed. Then I added, with difficulty, “Where’s Meg?”

  The woman—my wife—just laughed. After a moment, the kids did too. They looked at me like I was doing a bit.

  She gestured vaguely toward the ceiling.

  “She’s right here.”

  The lights in the room flickered ever so slightly. Then, in a booming voice that, apparently, everyone could hear, Meg said—tauntingly free of any acknowledgement that this wasn’t just another Tuesday—

  “Your food’s getting cold, Ludo.”