But James Seville couldn’t sleep.
It didn’t matter how much wine he drank, or how long he stayed in bed or how many sleep-aids he took; he could never sleep, and he was pretty sure no one else in this place could, either. It seemed ironic. Now that he had all the time in the world, he couldn’t waste it.
By 12:30 a.m., James had slipped out of bed and back into his loafers, ready for a walk. These midnight walks had never been part of his routine, yet lately, he found himself grabbing the silver flashlight, locking the deadbolt on his way out and calling for the elevator.
He made his way through the apartment lobby, past the abandoned attendant’s window and out the automatic glass doors. Outside, it looked like it might rain.
James lived in Greenwich Village, a south-western district of Manhattan that was nearly as old as the US itself, up on the fifteenth floor of an apartment complex that had gone through as many names as occupants. At the moment, it was called Archstone Clinton, but it wasn’t nearly as exotic as the name might suggest.
Greenwich Village always seemed to be in a state of flux, and, like most buildings here, Archstone Clinton was being renovated. Metal scaffolding encased the building from all sides, draped with colossal plastic sheets, 2 x 4 wooden gangways and slanted metal ladders. From a distance, it looked like a hollow checkerboard. When James was still alive, construction workers operated cranes and trailer-mounted boom lifts, cursing and smoking and drilling away. Now, he knew Archstone Clinton would never be finished.
Outside, James made his way between two parallel lines of traffic bollards that were tied together with yellow caution tape, then on down the sidewalk. The Village was deserted and silent, save for the dim hum of electricity far above, from high-definition billboards attached to the sides of high-rises. This sort of quiet should have been soothing, but he missed the sounds of the city, of car horns blaring, the hiss from bus doors opening, the white noise from people and their cell phones.
James stopped at a streetlight, on the corner of 78th and Houston, and pressed the mirrored walk button twice. Though the street was empty, he waited until the walk signal lit up, then started to cross.
Somewhere off in the distance, he heard tires squealing, faint at first, though there wasn’t a car in sight. James felt light-headed. He walked faster, hoping he might outdistance these horrid memories.
Soon he heard other sounds of destruction - glass shards raining on the asphalt, battered wheels spinning in the air, the siren of an ambulance. These noises grew louder and louder with his every step, loud as the City now, to a fever pitch. His heartbeat raced. He had to stop, halfway down the crosswalk.
James Seville had died on January 14th, 2006, around nine-twenty in the morning.
He couldn’t remember much.
The sky was overcast but calm, typical weather in Manhattan. James had been walking to his office, a few minutes ahead of schedule, crossing 78th street when he heard something pop. It sounded like a gunshot, but a split-second later he heard tires squealing, as a black SUV careened into view, sparks spurting behind its back left tire.
The driver, instead of braking, panicked and cut a hard left. He was trying to avoid James, but as the flat tire ground into the pavement, the SUV fishtailed, skidded sideways and tumbled over.
James must have died moments after that, laying there crumpled and broken on the pavement, a few feet from where he stood now. He didn’t feel any pain. He just remembered sitting up, as if he had been sleeping, without a scratch or bruise on him.
At first James thought he had cheated death. He brushed the bits of asphalt off his jacket and grabbed his briefcase, then stood up and looked around. There wasn’t a soul in sight.
Then he noticed something strange. He rubbed his eyes and looked again, but there it was: a black spot off to his left, where Jackson Avenue used to be. He started walking, his knuckles turning white as he clutched his briefcase. He spotted another black void, and another, by back-streets and alleyways and in the place of unfamiliar skyscrapers. They seemed to be everywhere, these spots of darkness, even inside buildings.
It took a bit before James realized the truth: these voids had replaced the streets he had never walked on, all the buildings he had failed to notice, the interiors he had never seen. His world had suddenly been reduced to a grid-work of streets, subway terminals and skyscrapers that were all hollow inside, like set pieces from a movie, all of them suspended above an infinite darkness. Once, in a moment of desperation, James had reached out and touched this darkness. It felt cold and empty.
Time, it seemed, had stood still the moment he left this world - news stands were still selling papers dated January 16th, electric billboards still played a 30-second loop from an upcoming reality TV show, subway fare was still $3.60 for a round-trip – soon, James wondered if he might be stuck here forever.
But sometime later, certain pieces of his world began to fade away, slowly at first, so that was easy to overlook them. Soon these places looked faint, as faint as images from a projector, and it wasn’t long before they, too, were swallowed up in the growing darkness. It seemed random at first, the way these places disappeared, so James listed them on a yellow pad. He began to see a system.
People were starting to forget about him, and when they did, parts of his own world faded away. And each time this happened, he felt a sharp pain in his chest, as if some small part of his identity had just been taken away.
At least for now, these people were just acquaintances: Mr. Ling, owner of James’s favorite Chinese restaurant, or the manager of The Village Opera House, who was also a patient of his. These people, these places, they hardly mattered to him. But it could only be a matter of time, he knew, before more intimate, more meaningful places began to fade away, like his practice or the log cabin upstate, where his parents lived.
One by one, everyone James had ever known would forget about him - every place he had ever been would vanish, until he was left with one final piece… left with the one person who remembered him the longest. Then that place would start to fade to darkness, and then…
…James blinked.
He was breathing fast now, overwhelmed by a sickening sensation in his chest. He whirled around and looked back up at Archstone Clinton, up to the fifteenth floor, to apartment #1503. It looked as vibrant and welcoming as ever.
He was safe, at least for now.
4.