I still haven't given up on finding the out the truth by looking back, plucking out dripping fragments of causality from the sludgy pools of my memory. Knowing what I do now about Bloo, I have to look back on my past like a sprawling, convoluted dream, sifting through patterns and moments that seemed perfectly normal at the time and trying to pin down what was strange.

I dredge up imagery from as far back as I can. The blue shape was always accompanied by its own motion, even when it was holding perfectly still. It was as though I was attuned to Bloo's vibrations, his constantly firing nerves linked to mine despite the distance. Running, tripping, climbing, crawling. Why didn't I realize sooner that the blue shape had been real, or that it should have been impossible to actually _see_ him? Shouldn't all animals have a sense for something so uncanny? Dogs are supposed to bark at aliens and ghosts, run and hide from earthquakes before they hit. When we see a very large animal in the woods, we immediately know that either it shouldn't be there, or we shouldn't. We detect the uncanny valley in CGI representations of humans, realistic robots, poorly designed cartoon animals. Why did I accept Bloo into my budding universe so easily? Where were my instincts? Maybe this is why he returned: he had a free pass into my consciousness. He'd gotten into the system early and shut down my mind's defenses against unreality.

I remember him guiding me down a trail somewhere, saying there was somewhere he wanted me to see. When I got there, I didn't understand what I was looking at, and he didn't know the word for it. Stones in circles, or maybe they were cinder blocks in rows? I must have been about five, so the grey shapes could've been anything, really.

I wonder if Bloo can see into my head. He must know how he unnerves me—how could he not? What is he planning? Is he going to stand back and watch while I search for ways to get rid of him? Maybe he'll tell me where he came from, or maybe he'll just lie. I hate to think that I might be doing just what he wants me to, moving blindly down a deadly path whose end I won't see until it's too late.

Lately I've started seeing my parents in my dreams.

Hoping against hope that Bloo can't read my thoughts, I only go over the old tapes, drawings and notebooks when he isn't around. The disconnected pieces of my childhood are like shards of a mirror that reflects meaningless slices of my identity: new words as I learned them, a vacation to Arizona, the food I ate, a game Bloo made up. We would make potions, each of us gathering half of the ingredients in order to save time. Soda, cleaning fluid, ketchup, insecticide. It's lucky I didn't drink that.

One of these days I should go back to my old neighborhood. I like to think there must be something for me to find there, clues that will help me navigate my mind. Maybe next weekend.

I find myself watching a video from when I was five. I see myself grinning, running through the house, putting my hands up against the walls and then pushing off as if to propel myself. I hear my mother smiling behind the camera. "I'm a racer!" I say.

I hold my breath as I hear the word "Bloo" clumsily pass my lips. "What was that?" asked my mother. Her voice sounds unexceptional, like a bland stranger's. Shouldn't it sound more familiar?

"Bloo's racing too," I repeat. "We're racist." (Races? Racers?) My mother must have heard the same thing I did, because she laughs. Child-me continues to run around in his strange fashion. I watch my eyes closely, narrowing down Bloo's location. Sure enough, I decide he must be running with me, staying close, forcing me to twist my head around as he passed me. He's about at my eye level, which seems consistent with his size after his reappearance.

What was my mother like? Was she intelligent? I know she was a pharmacist, but not much else. I like to think she and my father would have been proud of me, that I'm doing what they would have wanted, that dead people have meaningful goals and wishes that persist beyond the moment of zero brain activity.

I sit in the attic, watching yet another video, hiding from a part of my mind. I'd like to do something about the spider moving slowly across the ceiling, but I have nothing to reach it with.