My supervisor, Logan Harper, is a cartoon in a uniform, a cop who lived for performance, who mistook noise for authority. He strutted through the halls like the department was his personal stage, rehearsing lines no one asked him to deliver. He had a smile that never reached his eyes and a way of talking that filled the room but left nothing behind. Beneath the bravado was something smaller, brittle—a man desperate to be noticed, terrified of being ordinary.
Harper calls me Smith when people are around. Sarah when we’re alone. And every time he says either one, you can hear his brain do a backflip.
It’s the way he hesitates, just a half-second delay, like he has to open a filing cabinet in his head labeled: “What Do We Call Her In This Room?”
Smith in front of the group. Sarah in the hallway. Smith if someone walks by. Sarah again in the back parking lot.
He’s built an entire mental toggle system. A broken light switch that sparks every time it flips.
Sometimes I picture it happening in real time. Inside his head it must look like one of those old stock ticker machines, clacking and stalling:
> SMITH-SARAH-SMITH-SARAH-SMITH—ERROR—RESET—SAR—NOPE—SMITH—SMILE—SHUT UP—SARAH
The gears grind. The eye twitches. The fake tone recalibrates. He stares at me like I’m holding a remote he lost.
I can see the panic when he says “Sarah” too warmly and then realizes someone else was nearby. That look he gets? Like a raccoon caught washing its hands in a public fountain.
Busted.
Now he has to re-center the performance.
Back to Smith. Dry. Distant. Appropriate.
But not too distant. Because Smith might report him.
But not too warm. Because Sarah knows the truth.
But not too cold. Because Smith might not like that.
But not too familiar. Because Sarah sees him coming from miles away.
You can almost hear the tension sizzling through his nervous system.
I imagine his brain like an old Windows 95 computer trying to load both personalities at once.
Pop-up windows crashing into each other:
> “Smith.exe has encountered an error.”
> “Sarah.dll is not responding.”
> “Would you like to run Silent Treatment Mode?”
He walks away from interactions with me like he just fought in a war I wasn’t invited to.
Breathing heavy. Neck stiff. Soul unsettled.
And I? I just sit there. Calm. Watching the performance melt.
He doesn’t know who he’s talking to anymore. But I do.
I’m always the same.
He’s just talking to the version of himself he thinks I’ll react to.
Let him keep switching.
Smith. Sarah. Smith. Sarah. Smith.
Let his mind do somersaults.
I’ll be over here—unchanged, unmoved, and entirely unimpressed.
The next morning, I watched him from across the report writing room. He had a pen in his hand but hadn’t written anything. Just sat there, blinking slowly at a blank form like it was a trap he couldn’t escape.
Someone walked in—he straightened up. Shifted his shoulders. Grabbed a random piece of paper like it had purpose. Said good morning louder than necessary.
I didn’t move. Just kept writing.
He glanced at me once. Then twice. Then again. Waiting for some acknowledgment. Some smile. Some proof that his existence still echoed in mine.
Nothing.
So he tried.
“Morning, Smith.”
My pen didn’t pause.
He cleared his throat. Shifted his weight. You could practically see the buffering symbol in his eyes.
Ten minutes later, I walked past him in the hallway.
“Hey, Sarah,” he said, softer now. Testing.
I didn’t even turn my head.
He stood there, mid-step, as if he’d forgotten which character he was supposed to be.
And for the rest of the day, he didn’t speak to me again.
That’s the problem with shapeshifters.
Eventually, they forget which face is theirs.
I never had to change.
He’s the one who can’t remember who he is when I don’t play along.
