He wrapped rubber tubing around his arm and held it tight with his teeth as he posed the needle’s tip over the chosen spot. Derek’s way of dealing with short-term pain was to make a dramatic moment of it. When he pierced the protruding vein, his face contorted as if to highlight the pain for the back-row balcony.

Even an out-of-work actor had his pride. Derek had never believed in cheating those in the cheap seats, even if some selfish front-row critic thought one was hamming it up a bit.

A small bead of milky liquid welled from the entry hole as he withdrew the syringe and laid it aside. Derek sighed and sank back against his pillow. If he had calculated it right, this time he would go back! This time he’d return to the good days, long before…

He closed his eyes as a cool numbness spread up his arm and across his chest. His scalp tingled.

Derek could feel the here and now start to slip away. He tried to concentrate, determined not to let this trip get away from him!

Envision a small frame house on Sycamore Street, he told himself, in Albany, New York…

Sycamore Street, so long ago… Mother would be cooking a Sunday supper, Father is reading the paper, and my old room is a clutter of plastic airplane models, touching the air with a faintly heady scent of glue.

The numbness spread down his jaw and spine, and he willed himself back through the files of his cortex, back to Sycamore Street, back to being twelve years old again… back to where a familiar female voice was about to call out…

“Supper’s ready!”

It had worked! The new dose had worked! Those were exactly the words he had willed his mother…

“Come on, Lothario! Get your ass out here. I’ve whipped together a simple, nutritious meal for you. You’ve got ten minutes to eat and still get to the theater on time!”

The alto voice carried a quaver of emotion, barely suppressed. Derek realized with a sinking feeling that it was not his mother, after all.