I loved my job baking bagels. Waking up before most people began their daily routines and watching the street in front of the store slowly come to life was as gratifying as basking in the sun on a beach. In those early hours, the world felt quiet, orderly, and my place in it certain. I was always warm, standing in front of the incandescent inferno of the stone deck oven. Many assumed it must be uncomfortable, enduring that intense heat, but I told them it quickened my spirit and body, like a reptile basking on a rock or a Finn relaxing in a sauna. The oven’s heat was kind compared to the enormous cauldron of boiling water we used to cook the bagels. The hiss of boiling water filled the air, a constant background murmur. Its heat wasn’t the welcoming warmth of the oven but a sharp, biting force that made my skin prickle. Indeed, an oven is a gentle beast next to the raging demon of a boiling cauldron. Not that I burned myself often, but if I did, it was likely due to carelessness when tending the pot.

After returning from Mexico, something changed in me. At first, it was just flickers in the corner of my eye—shadows that moved when they shouldn’t. But soon, shapes formed in the flames. One morning, as I placed a board in the oven, the shapes solidified into a scene so vivid, it felt like the past had come to life before me. I started seeing visions flashing in the oven’s flame while I baked. One vision showed a battlefield where Mayans and Conquistadors clashed in a ferocious melee. Just as the Mayans were about to be overrun, a Mayan serpent queen appeared on the battlefield, playing a flute-like instrument. With her music, she summoned animals from the forest to attack and chase the Conquistadors away. I’d read accounts of the Incans’ last stand at Vilcabamba, and I was sure these visions were inspired by those descriptions. But I couldn’t deny the fantastical elements—no one can summon and control animals with music. Or can they? I started questioning more than just the visions. I began to wonder about the rats that darted through the alley—had they always been there, or had they multiplied? The bakery’s bell rang more than usual, yet no one entered. I felt my grasp on reality slipping.

Another symptom of my increasingly perturbed mental state was my need to carry my recorder everywhere. The smooth wood of the recorder became grounding, a talisman. I clutched it tightly in my fist as I walked the streets, or strapped it to my belt when my hands were occupied. The recorder became a source of comfort, a defense against the terrifying intensity of the visions. And then there was the voice—a voice in my head that began to recite Robert Browning’s “Pied Piper of Hamelin,” word for word, over and over. The poem was haunting, as if the voice was trying to tell me something I didn’t want to understand. I started to believe that maybe, just maybe, there was something to the fantasy—that with my recorder, I could summon something too.

People around me began to conclude that I was a madman, and I was starting to believe they were right.