Concerning the Bathroom

  The part of Taylor’s mind that wasn’t trying to reconcile the past few seconds was struck by the clinical feel of the bathroom again, the sparkling, antiseptic blues and whites and a lingering scent of cheap chemical floor-cleaner. He felt dizzy, and concentrated on not blacking out. He detoured at a sink, splashed some cold water into his eyes.
  The third stall had a white “Out Of Order” sign. Taylor nudged it open to see merely an uninspiring toilet nestled in its generic corner. Renfield shouldered past him, motioning Taylor to follow.
  Fighting that inevitable rush of claustrophobic nausea, he acquiesced and stepped into the stall. The clinical atmosphere of the bathroom was still excortiating his mind and nerves like a doomed fish, making him even more tense than usual. It coalesced with his dogmatic headache. Stanley and the Glock were little reassurance, and then something about a Renfield with more authority and initiative than his typical neophyte-courier aura. . . .
  He tried to shove it beneath a mental carpet. Eric would just laugh, he knew, and the thought of that laughter wasn’t any more subtle than if it were vocal. Eric always said that just because change was uncomfortable and a complication didn’t mean it was an evil thing. Usually it was just sort of an ambivalence. And Taylor of all people should respect someone’s hidden evolution.
  Eric was an ass when he climbed his philosophical horse.
  He instinctively moved with his back to a wall. Renfield was grinning expansively like he’d just had the greatest moment of his life, a ridiculous urban scarecrow in the jacket too large for him and hair clutching at his face like a nightmare about dead tree branches.
  “Sorry ‘bout that, man,” he said. “Security measures.” He giggled slightly.
  Taylor didn’t feel it worth the effort to answer. He pushed his glasses back up his nose. The bathroom was stuffy and hot, and the day outside had not inspired him to dress for it. His headache was making him jumpy, fueled with the sundry of mental dust-bunnies trying to escape their carpet imprisonment. Paranoia was starting to creep up the back of his neck; he tried to nonchalantly press his back further into the wall.