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Hubert's was Mike's last class of a late day and he had to hurry to the bus terminal to catch the last super-express to downtown. He'd be at the stop ten minutes early but ~hundreds~ of students were gonna be out of class in five minutes, and he wanted to be at the front of the queue. The non-express service was about a twenty-minutes longer trip and he didn't have that much time to spare. So he ran... a long hallway, down the big marble staircase, left turn, another hall, more stairs...

As he skipped down the last few steps to the front entryway, a boy coming into the building smiled really wide and held the door for him. Mike started to smile back and then saw.

He muttered a quiet thanks as he slipped through, but didn't look up to see the guy's expression again. He knew it would still be either that same, 'Hi, can I talk to you?' smile, or a confused look... and he didn't want to know which.

Not right then.

He kept running - down the outside steps and away, clutching his bag and books to his chest.

-

On the crowded bus Mike relaxed a bit, staring out the window but not really seeing anything. It was slow, leaving the university, and then they sped along at the limit through the suburbs and past all the small stores....

He hadn't realized how tense he'd become, standing those few minutes at the stop. Or maybe all through Hubert's class, but especially since the boy.

He was still hugging his books.

He'd been the one who spilled the bucket. Wanted all his balls all over the place. Needed.

He pictured the wire buckets at the mini-putt place and realized that those were what he'd been thinking of, not the plain one he'd drawn.

Like a cage he'd kicked over. Down the stairs.

Free all the little balls... Fly, little golf balls, fly!

He hugged his books even harder and stared out the window. He relaxed a bit, too.

-

The stop was just a block and a half from Denise's. It was a nice late fall day and downtown was almost as warm as indoors, even that late. Even the packed bus had been pretty comfortable with practically all the windows open, but fresh air was... better.

Mike knew he was thinking about anything but what he was worried about. He put his stuff down on a bench and took off his sweater.

He didn't know what to do... or what to say when stuff like that happened. He folded the sweater over an arm and picked up his school stuff again, hanging his bag's strap over his other shoulder.

As he walked he rubbed his chin back and forth on the top of his modern history book, and realized he had both arms wrapped wrapped tightly around himself. Again. He forced himself to hold his bag's strap with ~one~ hand, at least.

(If he didn't like that boy, the way he'd smiled, then why was he doing this?)

(~Did~ he like the boy?)

-

The office building was dirty, greyish stone, with stairs up to a small, marble lobby and ancient-looking brass elevator doors. Mike always thought it looked like it should all be private investigator offices, but the signs said there were mostly doctors and lawyers and merchants and such... and Denise's. Modern Skin Solutions.

The elevator made echoing, mechanical clunking noises as it started down. Mike looked at the binder paper peeking out of his textbook. He'd been the one to go to the councillors' offices. He'd read the student handbook looking to find out what student medical coverage might be. Gone to ask...

The inside of the elevator was disappointingly modern compared to the outside doors. Brushed steel and ugly plastic. Mike pushed the third floor button. The top one. There was space for a fourth, but it was just a keyhole.

It was always too hot in Denise's building. He looked at his sweater. It was a nice one, soft fleece, that he really liked. He wondered what that boy had seen? Him? His sweater? His hair? He turned the knob and went in.

The little bell tinkled and Denise poked her head out around her inside office door. He didn't even remember riding up.

"Oh, hi, Mick! Made the early bus again, I see! Have a seat and I'll be with you in about ten, okay?" He could tell she smiled from her voice, though she didn't lean out the inner office door enough for him to see her mouth. He smiled back and nodded and she disappeared. She zipped around on her wheeled chair like a kid. Her chatter started up again.

She always called him 'Mick' instead of Mike. She talked almost continuously with all of her clients and said she needed to to keep focussed and it was like a kind of distraction that made it easier, too. On the clients.

He didn't know if it made it easier, but it sure made it seem shorter, at least, and that was something. At least when she talked about stuff he could follow. Whoever was in with her now could talk back, so it wasn't her face. Mike wondered if it would be easier if he could talk back and they could have an actual conversation, but Denise said he had to stay still and not talk. She always completely stopped when he had to. Sat up and back and kind of glared at him for interrupting her. Her work, not her chatter.

She was a really intense woman, some ways.

Besides, it wasn't ~too~ bad....

The magazines were the same ones, except for a new mail-order catalogue, he thought, but he needed to catch up on his reading that he should have started on the bus, so he picked up Hubert's text and opened it to where his notes were stuck in at the right page. Notes. Yeah, right...

The wrong kind of bucket. Change. Time moves one way, and never reverses. Time's arrow.

Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.

Sometimes you're the windshield. Sometimes you get a $200 gift certificate for electrolysis. Probably the oddest thing any of the freshmen had won during all of Frosh Week, and he'd won it. In a girl's gift bag. A mistake and a fluke. Everyone had had a good laugh, but he'd kept it.

Sometimes you're the bug.

Or a butterfly...

Then, was the gift bag the butterfly... or was his decision to use the certificate? Could a decision ever be random?

And there were huge, concrete stairs up to the Student Services building.... It wasn't random to climb them. Bouncing balls didn't go ~up~ stairs.

Mike read and re-read what he'd written. Or looked at it all until he read one line.

"Things never go back to exactly where they were."

Life never returns to what it was.... (Why was he thinking so much about going back? Did he even want to? Did he ~ever~ want to?)

And the other sure thing is that you can't tell what will happen, either. What the real change will be.

A butterfly wing moved. It happened. It could never be unmoved again.

Maybe moving at all was that mattered. Doing something. Anything.

The ~real~ butterfly effect.

He looked up at the picture across from the waiting-area couch, at the reflective glass. And the boy in the reflection. Man. He was eighteen.

Nothing showed in the imperfect mirror. He was skinny. His mother said he was anorexic, except he was a boy.... And he wasn't. But he ~was~ probably less than 140. Certainly not too skinny.

(And anyway, he liked food!)

He couldn't even see the ~real~ problem in the fuzzy reflection. He started to stand up and look closer-

"Hey, kiddo!" Denise was at the little reception desk writing out a receipt for the lady who was sorting out her purse. No red patches, so not her face. Probably not bikini, either, not in October. He never did see the point in getting any other area done....

Mike put his notes and text back down on the coffee table, picked up his bag, and mentally prepared himself. He was surprised to find he was more relaxed than he'd been on the bus.

(~Really~ relaxed, really...)

-

"You're getting really, ~really~ great results, you know!"

Denise handled him like he was a rag doll, pushing and pulling his chin and head to look closely at her handiwork. ~Close-close~. Lighted magnifying glass and all. And that just inches away.

"You have such perfect follicles! There's very little re-growth coming in, as little as I've ever seen...." She sat up a bit and smiled. "Almost none! I think we're getting something like 90% kill!"

She always said something every time about his follicles and how the needle felt and what it had to do and all, but it was the first time she said his re-growth was so good. He knew what that meant.

She dabbed on cold, alcohol-smelling antiseptic. Mike stayed quiet as she talked, kind of reminding herself (or maybe him) about everything they'd decided over the weeks and months and how it was going and he kind of hummed that he heard her, like usual. It was all like a ritual, almost.... He thought about it being over, too.

She ran her fingers behind his neck and he lifted up as she pulled his hair out from under him and draped it over the top of the tiny pillow and then turned to re-wash her hands. Like always. He even knew from the way she did it she wanted him to turn to the left.

"I think if we work just at overall thinning and blending in from now on instead of concentrating on doing small areas completely the results will be even better, okay?"

Mike stayed quiet and thought. He hated having heavy areas and light areas. He hated explaining. Everyone seemed to notice, after a minute, that he had patches of beard.

He hated having ~any~ beard.

"I'll thin all the thicker bits today, and it'll look less contrast-y that way and the way you're progressing it won't slow things down any...."

-

Denise was rough, pressing and pushing as she worked. She said it helped.

Mike let himself relax and soon even the sharp twinkles of pain disappeared...

-

End of Part Deux, wherein our Protagonist Pupates.