"So let me get this straight. You go there and they make you wear some machine that does weird futuristic shit to your brain?" Mitski asked animatedly as she poured a generous amount of maple syrup over her waffles.

Lily watched as half of the square wells overflowed with the amber liquid, and Mitski began cutting them up into bite-sized pieces.  The diner was busy, as was usual for a Saturday morning, but they were seated at a table near the back, somewhat secluded from the hustle and bustle.

"Well…kind of. But it's not as scary as you make it out to be," Lily replied, buttering a slice of toast.  She nodded a thank you to the waitress who put down a plate of bacon on the table, then took a bite out of her toast. "Besides, I was kind of running out of options, and my psychiatrist is the one who suggested it. She said the results had been promising for their other trials so far."

"What psychiatrist, that Roberts lady? I thought you hated her." Mitski tucked a piece of waffle into her mouth and began chewing.

"I mean...yeah. She's been nothing but condescending to me." Lily stared briefly into her cup of coffee, but perked up and looked back up at Mitski. "But, anyway, that's not the point. None of the options we'd explored until Within helped. I'd still wake up with the same feeling of impending doom and drag my feet through the day and go to bed where I'd stare at the ceiling for five hours.  I forgot what not-feeling-like-shit was like, it's been so long. And when I left that first session, I felt good. I felt fucking good, Mits. And I still kind of do?"

At the last sentence, Mitski's rich brown eyes met Lily's. She set down her fork and knife and put a turquoise-manicured hand on her friend's, squeezing it affectionately. "Babes, I'm so happy to hear that. I'm all for anything that helps you live your best life."

She gave one of those affectionate smiles, the ones where the eyes scrunch up as the mouth curves. After a few seconds, she withdrew her hand. She stabbed another piece of waffle with her fork and dragged it through the puddle of syrup on her plate.

"Oh! Speaking of best life. Remember that guy Milo, the one from accounting I kept telling you about?  I finally talked to him again on Thursday, and he said he'd be happy to meet you for a daaate!" Mitski's voice had risen two octaves on the last word. Lily looked around the diner nervously, afraid the commotion would cause other people would look at them. No one seemed to care.

"Great," she said, failing to sound enthusiastic at the thought of going on a date with her best friend's coworker. Her reaction did not deter Mitski from continuing to deliver her sales pitch.

"No no no, you don't understand. He is perfect for you, Lils. He's quiet and nice, and he's not a creep!"

"Quiet and nice and not a creep, he sounds exceptional.  Wasn't it you who, last week, were telling me we need to start expecting more of men?" Lily tried to temper her tone, hoping it hadn't crossed too far from 'mild teasing' into 'bitter' territory.

"I promise he's more than that.  I don't know how to describe him, but I just see both of you working together. At the very least, I don't think you'd have a bad time over a cup of coffee with him. Please, Lils, I wouldn't be so pushy unless I truly felt you'd enjoy him. You have to go. Say yes!"

She wasn't sure what was different today, if it was the smell of bacon and coffee, or the sunlight streaming through the windows of the restaurant. Maybe it was just that accepting felt like the path of least resistance in that moment.

She sighed and met her friend's hopeful eyes, her eyebrows raising in resignation as she replied: "Okay. Okay, let's do it."

The following week, the chair seemed even more comfortable than when she left it after session 1.  She would immediately have relaxed into it, were it not for John, who needed to position the Within on her head.  She sat up as he checked every contact one by one, making polite listening noises in response to his usual smooth small talk, attempting to contain the energy coursing from the top of her spine to the base of her tailbone.  She was too eager to start the session to listen to John, she realized, the mixture of excitement and nerves making it hard to sit still.  

After what felt like an unending few minutes, John left the room and the lights dimmed. She eased into the chair the way one crawls into bed for a long-awaited rest, savoring every limb reaching its final position.

"Within Protocol, session two. Welcome back."

The voice had preserved its unnatural edge, and it stood out to Lily after not having heard it for a while.  Still, she was more familiar with it by now, and it no longer evoked the same annoyance as it did before.

"Block one will begin shortly. The duration of the block is five minutes. Please sit quietly with your eyes closed."

Lily complied. She knew the next five minutes would contain nothing but silence, but she found her mind filling up with a mixture of enough pleasant thoughts to tide her over.  Some were recollections of the last time she sat in this room: revisiting the memory of a breath as easy as a gentle breeze, attempting to recreate the melting of the tension in her muscles. Others were the fruit of her imagination as she tried to anticipate what block two would hold today. Those were all fragments, rather than fully developed images, but she didn't mind. Already things were different, felt different. The arrow of time sped along, but she no longer felt as though she was tied to it by a noose. She was content to just sit there and wait.

"Block two will begin imminently. The duration of the block is eighteen to twenty-nine minutes. It will end when the system achieves target coherence level. Please close your eyes and listen to the audio narrative."

Lily felt a twinkle of excitement stir behind her ears. The anticipation was such that it took a few seconds for her remember that she had been asked to close her eyes. When she finally did, the voice spoke up once more.

"Well done," it intoned, and Lily felt a wave of calm wash over her.  She revelled in the words that followed.

"Your return for a second session is a significant positive step in your treatment. You understand the importance of compliance. You can feel good about that - and reap the rewards for your dedication. Your enjoyment is an integral part of the treatment."

She did feel good. There was a mild pressure welling up at the base of her heart, the kind of tension that precedes laughter upon hearing the punchline of a good joke.

"The rewards you experience in treatment are powerful lessons. You can think now of all the time it took to get you here. The attempts at powering through life with your symptoms. The resistance to seek help.  How long did it take you to find this solution? Far too long.  The rewards will shorten the gap between thought and action. It has been shown that those who suffer emotionally are often trapped in their heads. You are learning to move through life, unfettered by your thoughts. A thought occurs, and the action soon follows. You are asked to release the tension in your arms and hands, and your muscles comply happily."

She didn't know relaxation could run so deep. She thought she was already relaxed, but her muscles felt like they just kept loosening by the minute. Her fingers, naturally curved, hung over the arms of the chair. Her arms felt impossibly, wonderfully heavy. It was all so...easy. She couldn't remember a time where being in the world hadn't felt like an uphill battle, but here she was, and her mind was drinking up the narrative like cool water in a desert.

"And just as your body releases, you can feel the tangles in your mind loosen, and relax, and straighten out. Following your thoughts is no longer a journey to confusion or pain. The paths all lead to action. Decisive, serene action. Even now, you can feel the paths shortening, drawing together the thought and the action. You are asked to relax your arms and hands once more, and your muscles oblige."

She felt her left arm slide, then fall bonelessly off the arm of the chair. It hung, ragdoll-like, and her head rolled to the side in the headrest. She didn't realize when, but a warmth had started spreading over her body. She felt like she was glowing.

"You are given a thought, and you act upon it. You comply. Feel the ease in this new pathway. You are asked to schedule the next session, so you proceed, and you make arrangements to show up on time."

Book another session she did.

Winter had come all at once this year, thought Lily, trudging through the half-melted slush that covered the sidewalk. As had become tradition in this age of global warming, they'd had a brown Christmas, not a white one, but a snowstorm had blanketed the town in the days that followed.  New Year's Day had just passed a few days ago, so the storefronts on the street, a main commercial artery, sported equal mixtures of holiday decorations and posters with obnoxious "New Year, New You!" slogans.

She hurried into the small coffee shop on the corner of the street. The warmth inside enveloped her as she stepped in line to order. A look at her phone showed her she was just barely on time. 

She took a second to will her shoulders to lengthen from her ears. Session 2, done earlier today, had left her in that same buoyant state, but the effect had subsided somewhat once she got back on the train and realized how little time she had to make it to the date.  So far, the feelings of well-being she got from Within were short-lived. She'd find herself greeted by the familiar tensions within a few hours of leaving the Laboratories, even if they were less intense.

"Are you Lily?" she turned to face a thin man peering at her through small, wire-rimmed glasses with a slight smile. He was easily a head taller than her, maybe a head and a half.  His hair was short, a bit scruffy, a light golden-brown hue.  His entire coloring was pale - light hair, grey eyes, pale skin.

"I take it you're Milo." Lily offered a half-smile in return.

She opened her mouth to launch into the usual stilted small-talk, but it was her turn to order, so she turned to the barista at the cash register. This initiated the motions of ordering-and-waiting-for-the-drinks, through which Milo went as well.  The rate of the different steps - the ordering, the paying, the moving to the end of the counter to wait for the drink - was such that it was impossible to start a conversation with him quite yet, but she didn't want to seem uninterested, so she'd periodically glance back at him and they'd exchange an awkward nod, or a nervous smile, or a "cold outside today, huh?" - all of which only succeeded in making Lily more nervous.

Finally, they sat at a table next to the front window.  His red jacket rustled as he took it off and draped it over the back of the chair.  He gave a satisfied little sigh as he settled in his seat, put his palms on the sides of his mug, and smiled at her. 

"Here we are," he said.

"Here we are," she repeated, though hers sounded more like a question than a statement. She shifted a little in her chair, glancing outside the window and then back at him.

"I never know how to start conversations on these dates. Such a strange position to be in, talking to a complete stranger," he laughed sheepishly.

"Tell me about it.  Mitski gave me two points about you - you're in accounting and you're not a creep. That's your endorsement. How does it feel?"

"Oof. I'm going to have to work extra hard, won't I?" he winced.  "I was really hoping I'd show up here and find you to be instantly just so very into me, schoolgirl crush-style."

He punctuated that sentence with a cheesy wink, then continued: "But really, I'd like to know more about the girl Mitski's been waxing poetic about for three weeks straight. She said you studied literature?"

The conversation went on for a while. As it progressed, she found herself unable to stop smiling. She could barely sit still in her seat - so much so, she wondered if the coffee she had chosen was brewed particularly strong that day. She didn't quite understand what made this date so different.  Small talk between two up-until-then-strangers could only feel so lively. Yet, the laughter came easy, and with every word he said she could feel her cheeks getting warmer.

So warm, in fact, that the minute she saw him empty his mug, she jumped up. "It's so nice out. Let's go for a walk!" Maybe the fresh air would cool her face.

Milo paused, mildly amused at her outburst. He nodded. "Okay."

This winter evening was on the milder side. Despite what she had said, it was not particularly nice out. Large clouds covered the night sky, the moon's hazy glow faintly visible through them. The sidewalks were still slushy, and Lily found herself gleefully squishing along in her winter boots.  They weren't talking anymore. Even if he had tried to speak again, she didn't think she was physically capable of carrying on a conversation.  She was bursting at the seams, an inexplicable joy bubbling over every inch of her skin.

They stopped at a red light. She looked up at him. There was a sparkle in his eyes, she thought, or perhaps it was a reflection of the streetlights in his glasses.  It had started to snow, big fat snowflakes that drifted lazily through the air and partially melted as soon as they landed, and they were starting to build up in his hair.

"What?" he chuckled. "Something on my face?"

"I don't know," she murmured. Her cheeks still felt warm. She hoped he would chalk the blush up to the cold.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" She tried to look away, embarrassed, but found that she couldn't.  There was something about the moment.  The fine lines around his eyes when he smiled; the rosiness that adorned his cheeks and the tip of his nose.  His steady, gentle eye contact. 

"You're enjoying this date, aren't you? Because I think you know as well as I do that if Mitski hears I took you on a bad date, she will crucify me. I need to know if you're enjoying yourself."

"No no, I promise, you're fine."

"Fine, or fiiiine?" He waggled his eyebrows during the last word. She laughed at that. There was a slight uneasiness in his jokes; she could tell he was making them to diffuse the tension, and she found it unbelievably charming.

"See, you really are into me. That was a terrible joke, and you still laughed."

By the feeling of it, she imagined her face might be redder than a candy apple. She felt it again, that same pressure at the base of her heart, though this time it escaped through her mouth, a string of words she had not consciously assembled.

"...Maybe I am."

His energy changed then. His antics had been punctuated by exaggerated expressions and wild gestures, but he stopped moving, facing her, and took a step forward. His face couldn't have been more than a few inches from hers. His eyes searched hers, and he tilted his head ever so slightly. A snowflake landed on his right cheekbone and she watched it melt. He spoke.

"Kiss me."

Her lips met his before she could even register the words. He wrapped an arm around her. Her eyelids fluttered and she felt him pull her closer. Time stretched on, sensuous second by sensuous second.

She could feel it growing in the hollow beneath her ribcage: the sense that this was one of those moments that formed a landmark around which time would place itself. That there would be a "before" this kiss, and an "after" this kiss. That realization was larger than she could fathom, and yet, fear only made up a small fraction of it. 

The unknown was unfolding and, for once, she was curious to see what was next.