“Pardon me… My name is —”

“I know who you are, as well as I know you'll see the sun tomorrow.” A feminine voice said from behind the desk and the sounds haptic feedback. “You are Hugh Mechta. You were born and raised in another city but now you live in the eastern part of this one. Your father passed away when you were young, and you wish to—”

“Hold on one second. How do you know all this about me already?” Hugh interrupted. “Did you divine this information, roll some bones, have a spirt vision or see me in a dream?” Hugh felt silly saying all of this, for he was quite skeptical of anything paranormal, but he had been taken aback by what Masha had said. “Are you truly a mystic?”

Hugh's final question brought the sound of haptic feedback to a halt and sent Masha twisting in her chair with a joyful laugh. She swung her purple sneakers to the floor with a muffled thump against the carpet, thrusted herself forward and planted her elbows on the table. With one hand she set her phone to the side and with the other brushed golden pink streaks from her eyes.

Hugh deemed that Masha was perhaps in her late twenties, younger than himself. Other than her cheeks, her face lacked any curves or round edges. Her nose, chin, eyebrows, and jawline were all sharp. Masha reminded him of one of the ceremonial daggers in the collection room.

Raising her eyebrows and bearing a smile sharp enough to cut Hugh in two, a sea of detailed lines formed on Masha’s forehead and cheeks. If Masha were indeed a ceremonial dagger, then those detailed lines would be the decorative etchings of a master artisan. Hugh felt that even one of those lines could tell a multitude of stories from Masha’s life, personality, and inner workings.

Hugh suddenly forgot why he had come to Office M and found himself wanting to hear those stories.

“Ceremonial daggers are not as interesting as you think.” Masha said as her smile turned into a soft grin. “I feel that your initial set of questions deserve answers. How do I know so much about you, your life, and your family?”

Hugh was still standing, and his eyes were glowing with eagerness for Masha’s answer.

Masha deftly scooped up her phone from the table.

“The answers are all here.” She said and shook her phone in the air, not unlike how someone would wave a miniature flag. “You ought to enable stricter privacy settings on your social media accounts and websites where personal data is visible. After popping your name into a search engine, I got plenty of hits that provided plenty of information.”

The parts Hugh’s brain that govern embarrassment, relief, and disappointment all fired at once to produce a dizzying emotional cocktail. He was embarrassed at how visible he was on the internet but simultaneously relieved and disappointment that she did not enact a complex magical ritual to scry information about him.

For a moment Hugh felt not like a person, an individual being, but like a faceless piece of data amongst billions of other data sets that are stored somewhere in a database.

“Don't be disappointed. Practically everyone is just a datapoint in a database now. That is just the nature of the world we live in.” Masha said and offered Hugh the seat across from her. He swiftly took it. “But enough of that. Let me answer your question about whether I am a mystic. The short answer is—yes. The longer answer is yes – I am a mystic.”

Hugh sat there, mouth agape. Masha's attempt at humor caused him even more confusion as he was still reflecting upon his existence as a mere line of code in a database. He took a deep breath through his nose and tried to reset his emotions to something calmer.

Hugh's mouth was dry from hanging open and he licked his lips in a vain attempt to moisturize them.

“Since you know so much about me, do you know why I am here?” Hugh asked.

“Of course, I know.” Masha's mouth formed into another cutting smile as she mirrored Hugh, her tongue gliding along her lips like a knife across a whetstone. “You are here because of your hallucinations.”

“But.. How… Where?” Hugh stammered and struggled to formulate a question.

Masha raised her hand, signaling for High to pause his question forming endeavor.

“No need to feel flustered.” She gave him a reassuring smile. “You spoke with Timmy on the phone yesterday and he relayed to me that you had mentioned hallucinations in your conversation. That's how I know.”

Hugh had forgotten about his conversation with Timmy and felt embarrassed for his current lack of eloquence. He had been feeling foolish throughout this entire meeting.

“Let's throw away the past and just focus on the here and now, shall we?” She said as she leaned forward on the table, seemingly beckoning Hugh's attention. “Please, tell me about your hallucinations. What causes them? What do you see and experience?”

The way Masha looked at Hugh put him at ease, as if a calming spell were cast over him. He sat back in his chair and words emerged without effort.

Hugh told her about his hallucinations.

Hugh had spoken with many people in his life. All these conversations had led him to a conclusion about speaking partners, namely that most of them weren't active listeners. Hugh knew that after some time during their conversation they would stop listening and simply move onto hearing. They would nod in agreement or give a grunt of dissent, but behind those conversational cues the hearers would be plotting what to say next, or how to shift the conversation unto themselves, as opposed to listening contemplatively and responding in kind.

Hugh's previous observations and conclusions could not be applied to Masha. As he spoke, her eyes did not waver from his own and she hung on every word that he said. Every time he paused to permit her time to comment, she tilted her head and silently said, “Please, go on.”

And each time Hugh went on speaking and every time Masha went on listening.

“You know Masha, you are only the third person that I have spoken to about this. The other two weren't of much help.” Hugh said after recounting his various hallucinations when encountering the news, including the most one recent involving the dragon and the porcupine in the café. “So, what do make of all this?”

“Tell me something Hugh.” Masha said and shifted in her chair, her eyes not leaving Hugh. The blue in them grew more honed and intense, reflecting her attention and concentration. “How do you discern between hallucination and reality?”

“I just do.” Hugh said and pointed at Masha's desk. “Take those two pens, for example. I look at them and I just know that they are different. They have different shapes, colors, and positions on the table. Not much thought needs to go into recognizing that they are different. The same applies to my hallucinations. When an animal starts to converse with me, or if the world bends before my eyes, I just know that it is my brain editing strange scenes onto the figurative movie that is my life.”

“Sometimes I have nightmares and sometimes I have the sweetest of dreams.” Masha said. “Quite often, in this dream state, I cannot distinguish whether I am awake or asleep. Sometimes I wake up and it takes a few moments to solve the conundrum of whether I am still dreaming. So, I ask you, how can you say with confidence that you are not dreaming at this moment and that your life is not projection of your mind? Going further with this, how can you say that you are not in a lifelong coma, or even strapped to some machine feeding experiences and sensory stimuli to your brain?”

“Don't you think you are going too deeply down the philosophical route?” Hugh asked.

“No, I don't.” Masha responded and her lips snapped into a thin smirk. “Humor me, if you must.”

Hugh's hands went to the back of his head and his eyes drifted to the ceiling as he tried to construct a fitting answer.