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"They're coming again!"

"No," her sister said soothingly.

"They are! They're coming, and they're coming tonight!" Susan knew her sister believed her. Carol and her sister shared a closeness few sisters, Susan was sure, experienced. And whenever Susan felt another visitation coming upon her, Carol would always tell Susan that it wouldn't happen. Susan would feel the fear and Carol would comfort her. That was the way it had been since the young women were little girls. Susan would awaken in the night, sweat soaking her bunny pajamas, and Carol would always be there to comfort her.

"How long has it been since the last time?" Carol asked. "It's been a long time, hasn't it? They've probably given up on you...don't you think?"

"No. No, they will never give up on me. They will never leave me alone," Susan said desperately.

Carol pulled the car into a parking space, then took the keys from the ignition and put them into her purse. She looked up at Susan sitting next to her. "They will drive me crazy, you know," Susan said. She felt a sudden sadness that took her breath from her. "I'm a twenty-nine year old woman who lives with a waking nightmare."

"Maybe..."

"No." Susan put up her hands. "No, don't start. Sometimes it enrages me that this isn't happening to you. It enrages me that I am plagued by this and you aren't. I love you, Carol, but I resent having to fight this nightmare alone."

"If you would only try to..."

"Try to what?" Susan said. "Try to what? Forget they are part of my life? Forget that they so intrude on my life that I dare not ever become emotionally involved with another because he wouldn't understand? Because he would think I'm crazy?"

"I didn't mean it to sound that way."

Susan dug her fingers into her face in frustration. "I know you didn't. But I want what you have. I want a husband like Dan and I want children like Michael and Moses. I want what you have. I want a normal life, damn it! I just want a normal life!" She was aware that her emotional outburst only served to upset both of them, but it was always like this.

"Drinking won't solve your problem, Susan."

"I...I don't drink," Susan said, flustered at this accusation.

"Do you think I'm stupid, girl? I can smell it on you. The car reeks with the smell of alcohol. How long have you been drinking?" Her sister looked at her, her eyes boring into her.

"I only...I only drink when I know they're coming."

"I don't believe you, Susan. It may have started that way, but I'm smelling it on you more and more. It's only two o'clock on a Saturday afternoon and already you've started drinking. I didn't want to say anything to you because Dan told me to stay out of it, but I can't let this go by. You'll destroy yourself with that stuff."

"Now you listen to me," Susan said coldly, "these things come to me and terrify me and hurt me. When they finish with me, they put me back into my bed and I wake up the next morning with something far worse than a hangover. I have no defense against them, Carol. They take me, do what they want with me, then throw me back in bed."

"But..."

"Stop, Carol. Don't lecture me. You've never gone through this and you don't understand. I remember everything when they take me. Everything. You know this all too well. I don't even need a hypnotist to bring out my stories. These things don't even take my memory like they do with some. I remember each event in all its terrifying details."

"You don't have to remind me of this, Susan. We've lived with this for at least twenty-six years."

"If this were happening to you, you couldn't live with it!" Susan spat. "You'd drink too if you were in my place. The booze helps me go to sleep and helps me to truly sleep until they come for me."

"Does it really help when they take you? Does it truly dull the fear you experience?"

Susan looked down at her lap. "No."

"Then stop this," Carol said gently. "Stop the drinking before it kills you."

"I can't. These beasts have me in a grip I can't escape from."

The afternoon matinee did little to calm Susan. Whenever Susan would tell Carol "they" were coming again, Carol would take Susan somewhere, anywhere, in an effort to distract her from the horrible ordeal she was about to face. But it never worked. It didn't matter what kind of activity Carol had cooked up for her, Susan could not be distracted from the reality of her impending nightmare. And tonight Susan was more exhausted than usual because she knew that Carol had this time made an extra effort to keep Susan away from her whiskey bottle as long as she could?to keep her away from the mind numbing poison as long as she could. But Susan was desperate. Even though the shock of her experience with the "beasts" instantly sobered her up when they took her, she at least could drop into bed dead drunk until they came.

Susan began to panic: she was too sober now. She had been with Carol too long today. She would have to slug the booze down fast if she was going to provide any emotional protection for herself.

Susan went to the kitchen and pulled a fifth of whiskey from the kitchen cabinet. Then she took a water tumbler and poured three fingers of whiskey into it. She took a swallow. "Mmm," she mumbled with satisfaction as the whiskey burned like fire on the way to her stomach.

She sat down in front of the television. Already she was feeling the effects of the alcohol as it began to creep into her brain. A late-night talk show host blared his silly jokes from the screen. The image began to swim slightly as Susan slowly moved her head from side to side. Good?the alcohol was beginning to dull her senses. She could handle them now. She could live with this.

She looked at the glass, her head moving lazily as if she was now in a very safe place. The three fingers of booze was already gone. Somewhere back in Susan's brain she panicked at the amount of alcohol she had ingested in such a short amount of time, but the more aware part of her brain, the part that was terrified of what was to come, told her she was handling this problem in the only way she could.

"Ingesting alcohol is harmful."

"Yeah? Your clammy hands in my body is harmful too," Susan barked. She was here again. They had taken her again. The shorter ones stood around her table, looking at her with their huge black bulging eyes. They stood like school boys attentive to the taller one - the taller beast who was telepathing his displeasure to her. The taller one always expressed his displeasure. It was impossible to please him.

"You are a willful human."

"Let me go," Susan said. She began to cry now. "For the love of God, let me go. I can't take this anymore. You've examined every possible part of me since before I was three years old. Haven't you learned enough by now? Please let me go and let me live a normal life." If Susan would have had the strength to get up off the table she would have grabbed the thin neck of the taller being and choked the life from him. But she didn't have the strength. Whenever they would take her, they would also paralyze her. Only when they returned her to her bed would she regain her strength, and only after they were well away. And then it would be too late.

"You have been an interesting experiment."

Hope flared in her. "Does this mean you've finished with me? Are you going to stop taking me?"

"I did not imply this. You have been an interesting experiment and you will continue to be."

Susan began to cry again. She didn't want to. She knew these beings were extremely interested in the emotional side of her, and her crying only added fuel to their mad experiment. But she couldn't help it.

The tall one moved closer to her. As he had done many times before, he quickly took a sample of Susan's tears.

"Stop it! Stop it!" Susan screamed. "You know what's in my tears! You know...you know..." She sobbed uncontrollably now, so deep was her desperation and grief.

"Don't cry, Mother." A child, barely four years old, was now at her side. The child looked somewhat like Susan. She had seen the child many times before. The beings had told her that the child was hers, but Susan didn't believe them. She couldn't allow herself to believe them.

Susan could turn her head far enough to see the child, but she had no strength to reach out and touch it. Each time the child was brought to her Susan felt anguish for it. She wanted to take the child home with her. She wanted to hold it and raise it as her own. What could these alien beings possibly offer this child who looked so very human?

And now, as if a switch was activated in the child, it abruptly turned and left the room. The tall being moved very close to Susan and touched her nose by slowly leaning his flat, gray face into her face. The being didn't breathe. It simply was. Susan gagged at the closeness of the nightmare. Even though she had endured this act hundreds of times, she couldn't get over the horror of it. She felt as if she was being dropped into a nest of beetles.

"I am the same as you, Susan," the being telepathed, as if it picked up her revulsion. "We are both beings in this three dimensional space. We must learn to co-exist, you and I."

"Never!" Susan spat.

"Have either I or my people ever hurt you?"

"Yes! Many times! Are you totally stupid to what you do? Do you think you can just take us from our homes and treat us like animals? Are you people nuts?"

"We are the keepers of the garden. The garden is ours and the plants that grow within it also belong to us. We are a superior race who is taking care of you."

Susan didn't know how long she screamed, but when she awoke, her throat was so sore she could barely talk.

Susan didn't particularly care for her job. It was demanding. At times it was even challenging. But teaching calculus to university students was almost impossibly difficult when she would find herself standing at the blackboard, the explanation of how to find the first derivative using the chain rule ready to spill from her mind, and the memory of her brutal abduction the night before literally grinding her class presentation to pieces.

A hand went up. "Susan," the student began, "couldn't we just feed this problem into our handy little graphic calculators?"

She liked it when her students called her Susan. They liked her and she wanted them to be comfortable with her. "No, Helen. You won't learn anything if you just push buttons. I want you to write it out..." Susan pulled a pencil from her pocket, "with one of these." She made a funny face to the class. The class tittered.

A voice from the back of the room said, "You mean with one of those compressed graphite field plotters?"

The class broke into laughter at the student's engfish term referring to a common wooden pencil.

Susan smiled. "Yeah. Use a compressed graphite thing-a-ma-jiggy." As the class continued to laugh, Susan again turned to the board and carefully worked through the problem. She looked at her watch. "Whoops, we're out of time. Do the odd problems at the end of this section and tomorrow I'll introduce you to even more of the wonderful world of calculus."

The students, some right out of high school, others in their forties and going for a change of career, packed up their book bags and left the classroom. Susan sat down. She didn't have another class for two hours. She welcomed the break. "Wanna break with me?" A woman, smiling, stuck her head in the door.

"Hi, Alice. No. Not today, thanks. I've got some work in my office. Maybe tomorrow."

"Sure. See ya tomorrow." The woman left.

Susan picked up her textbook and walked towards her office. Students called her by name as she walked down the hallway. She re-evaluated. The job she had was a good job. The people she served made it worthwhile. If only...But she had no control over that. She had pleaded with them countless times to let her go, and each time they answered her in the same way: "We are the keepers of the garden. The garden is ours and the plants that grow within it also belong to us. We are a superior race who is taking care of you."

She walked into her office and slammed the door. Then she poured herself a cup of coffee. Maybe she was drinking too much. She downed a slug of the hot coffee. It tasted good. She needed the caffeine to kill the last remnants of the hangover she woke up with.

Susan quickly looked up at a quiet tapping on her door. Setting the coffee cup down, she opened the door. A man, a stranger, stood in front of her. "May I help you?" Susan asked.

"I...I don't know," the man stammered.

There was something alarming in the man's manner. He wasn't threatening. He was confused and Susan knew this instinctively. So without hesitation, she said, "Please, come in."

Susan quickly re-evaluated her act of good will. The man's hair was, long, unkempt and dirty. It appeared as if he hadn't shaved for at least a week. And his clothes were wrinkled as if he'd slept in them. But she couldn't just leave him standing here. "Would you like to sit down?" she offered.

The man looked at her intently. Then he said, "May I?"

"Yes. Oh, please." Susan pulled out a chair. "Sit," she said, not meaning to sound bossy, but realizing this man needed some kind of direction.

The man sat down slowly into the padded chair. Then he began to stare at his surroundings. He would turn his head five or ten degrees, then stop and stare for a few seconds, then continue turning his head a few more degrees, then stare again. She was suddenly acutely aware of just how messy and disorganized her office was. "The place is a trash heap, I know, but..."

The man stopped turning his head and stared off into space.

"Are you all right?" Susan asked

"Well, I..."

"I can call the nurse, if you like." She knew Brian was the nurse on duty today.

He slowly turned his head towards her. "Nurse?" he said. "A medical caretaker?"

"Uh, yes. I guess you could call him a medical caretaker, although I'm sure he has never heard himself addressed in quite that way. Would you like me to phone him?"

"What would he do to me?" the man asked.

"He would...well, he might take your blood pressure," Susan said kindly. "Maybe your temperature. He would check your vital signs so we would know you were all right." Susan felt frustration rising within her. This man had to communicate with her more fully if he wanted her to help him.

"Well," the man said, "I would allow this caretaker to check my vital signs. Would you like me to allow him to do this?"

Susan exhaled sharply. Who was this man? "I will call the nurse if you like. Shall I do that for you?" Susan asked in what she knew to be too loud a voice.

"Yes," the man said quietly.

Susan quickly dialed the number of the campus nurse. A voice on the other end said, "Campus nurse. Brian speaking."

"Brian?"

"What's wrong, Suzie?"

"Brian, I have a man here who apparently isn't feeling very well. Could you quick like a bunny bring your little black bag right over here?"

"Are you in your office?"

"Yes. Please hurry."

"Be right there."

Susan hung up. "The nurse will be right here," she said reassuringly. "He's in this same building so it won't take him long."

"What is a bunny?" the man asked.

"What?"

"You told the medical caretaker to come quick like a bunny. What is a bunny? And what is in the little black bag?"

"Well..." God, she was frustrated. "A bunny is an animal. It's a rabbit. Do you know what a rabbit is?"

"A rabbit is a small animal with fur and long ears. It hops rather than walks smoothly like we humans do."

Susan looked at this man with confused eyes. Where had this man come from? He didn't know what a bunny was, but he knew well what a rabbit was, and she was oddly impressed by his self assurance. "Yes, that's what a rabbit is," she answered. "Another name for a rabbit is 'bunny.' Children often call rabbits bunnies."

"Oh," the man said.

"As for what's in the little black bag, you're soon to find out." The door opened and Brian stepped in.

The eyes of Susan and Brian met. The man looked alarmed. "Are you and the nurse friends?"

"Yes," Susan said. "This is my friend, Brian. He is a medical caretaker."

Brian looked quickly at Susan. 'Medical caretaker?' he mouthed.

Susan ignored his silent comment. "Brian, this man isn't feeling well. That's why I called you."

Brian sat down on a chair, set his black bag on the floor, then opened the bag and took out his blood pressure cuff. He looked at the man. "What do you feel like?"

"I feel," the man said. He again looked around at Susan's office. "It's good to feel."

Susan glanced at Brian. Brian said, "Would you allow me to check your blood pressure?" He unrolled the blood pressure cuff and showed it to the man.

The man looked at the unrolled cuff, now a long gray band dangling from Brian's hand. The man touched it. Then he said, "If you like."

Brian wrapped the cuff around the man's arm, put his stethoscope in his ears, then pumped the cuff up. The man sat very still as Brian let some air out, looked at the gauge, pumped the cuff tight again, looked at the gauge again, then let the air all the way out and took the cuff from his arm. "Your pressure is fine. It's one twenty over seventy. It's in the normal range." Brian leaned into his bag and took out an electronic thermometer.

"What is that?" the man asked, alarm on his face.

"It's just a thermometer. It takes your body temperature almost instantly. I put this end into your ear. It won't hurt you." Holding onto the handle, Brian mimed putting the cone-shaped sensor into his own ear.

The man quickly stood up. "No!" he said. "No, I will not allow this! You will violate me! No!"

"Okay, okay, sir," Brian said soothingly. "I won't take your temperature."

The man stood, his knees quackeing. "Please don't put that in my ear. Please."

"I won't," Brian said. "Sit down. I won't hurt you. Really...I'm sorry to have upset you."

The man sat down slowly. "And I'm sorry to have reacted so foolishly to your request. The device is to read my body temperature?"

"Yeah," Brian said. "But we can skip taking your temperature."

"Skip?" the man asked. He looked at Susan as if he was looking to her for help.

"I won't do it," Brian said. "I'll skip it. I won't do it."

The man wrinkled his eyebrows. "You may read my body temperature if you like. I apologize for my rudeness. Proceed."

Brian stood up, then carefully, in a nonthreating way put the cone into the man's ear. The man flinched slightly. Brian quickly withdrew the cone and read, "98.4 on the display. Your temperature is normal." The man sat back down on his chair.

Brian looked at Susan. "Why did you call me? This man's vitals are fine."

The man smiled slightly. "Your friend called me because she thought I was mentally confused."

Susan lurched in her chair. "I was concerned for you," she said. "If you knew why I was concerned, why did you let me call for Brian?" She tried to keep the anger from her voice, but knew she had failed miserably.

"I am confused," the man said. "I allowed you to call because I don't want to feel confused. I was hoping the medical caretaker could dispel my confusion." The man stood up. He looked at Susan, then at Brian. "Thank you for trying to help me. I must leave now."

"Wait," Susan said. "If you are confused, you should go to the hospital."

"Hospital." The man said the word slowly, rolling the syllables around on his tongue. "Hospital," he said again. He turned around, opened the office door, and left.

"Weird!" Brian said. "I'm glad you called. What a weird man. Why did you even let him in? Knowing you, he probably just showed up at your office door and you let him in."

"He's confused, Brian. Have some sensitivity for him," Susan said. Sometimes Brian irritated her. Sometimes Brian was as sensitive as a rock. Like now.

"Oh, don't get into an uproar," Brian said. "I just made an off-handed comment about someone I don't even know. We'll never see him again."

"You don't know that," Susan said. "That man was confused. We shouldn't have even let him go. He could walk across the street and get hit by a car, for crying out loud. Sometimes I wonder why you ever became a nurse. It's times like these that I'd just like to smack you."

"So it's probably not a good time to ask you if you'd like me to come over tonight."

Susan sighed deeply. "Not tonight, Brian. I'm really too tired to be decent company to you."

"That's all right. I don't need company when we're in bed."

She knew Brian said it in a teasing way, but it struck her wrong. She wasn't up for his coarse sense of humor just now. "Not tonight."

Brian touched her breast. She slapped his hand. "What the hell," he said. What's eating you today?'

"Nothing. Nothing is eating me."

"If you would have let me come over last night you wouldn't be in such a grouchy mood today," he said, pouting.

Susan knew they were coming last night. She never missed in forecasting their coming. She didn't dare have Brian over on a night she knew the beasts would visit her. And she was finally beginning to admit to herself that Brian was not compatible with her. He would never understand her visitors. He would never sympathize with her plight or hold her in the middle of the night after they had put her back into bed. And she didn't know if they would take him along with her. If they did, how would Brian react to the abject horror Susan had so long endured? Brian was a nice person in his own way, but Susan needed someone who would love her no matter what. It was becoming more and more evident that Brian just didn't fit into her life.

"I think it's time for us to call it quits, Brian." There. She had said it. She had been working herself up to this point for weeks, and now it was out in the open.

"Well, now, how long have you been grinding this around in your pretty little head, doll?" He reached for her breast again.

"Don't." She brushed away his sudden advances. "And don't call me 'doll'. You know I don't like it when you call me that."

Brian picked up his black bag and stuffed the thermometer and blood pressure gear back into it. "So, we're calling it quits, then?"

"It seems so." Susan couldn't look at him. She knew she'd hurt him. She just wanted him to leave her office.

"Fine." He slammed the door on his way out.

Susan refused to let her now defunct relationship with Brian rattle her. The relationship had soured between them almost as soon as it began, but Susan held on because she desperately needed a friend. Not necessarily a lover, although that would have been wonderful, but a friend she could tell her troubles to. Brian wasn't that kind of friend. Brian's favorite three letter words were 'bed,' 'lay,' and 'sex.' Susan certainly wasn't against having a real lover in her life, but Brian wasn't a lover. Brian simply wanted sex, and to Susan the difference between love and sex was too great for her to accept just anyone into her life.

During the last few days Susan frequently found herself wondering about the disheveled man who had somehow found her office door. She wondered where he was and what he was doing. She wondered if he was all right. There would be no way to find him, she was sure. Granite Falls was quite a large town for such a quaint name. Its population wasn't huge, if one considered forty thousand citizens small, but the town spread out across the countryside like a blanket. If the man decided to hide or not come back, there would be no way she could find him.

The day at work had been quite long. Susan had given three tests, one in the morning and two in the afternoon, and sitting in a quiet classroom checking test papers while the students sat in their chairs sweating bullets over Susan's test questions made for a work day that seemed to take forever to end. Now she was driving home. She couldn't wait to see her "family." She hoped they had missed her as much as she missed them. For just an instant she had pangs of regret for dismissing Brian from her life so abruptly, but it had to be done. It was better this way.

She pulled the car into the driveway. Thor, Susan's big German shepherd, came up to her, sprang up on his hind legs and licked her face. "Hi, Thor. Hi, boy," she said as she laughed and turned her face away from his incessant licking. She loved the attention, but sometimes Thor's big tongue proved to be too much for her.

She pulled the garage door closed and walked into the house, the dog following her and slapping his tail from side to side as he paced her shadow. "Eleanor?" Susan called. "Eleanor, come here and say hello to your mama."

A cat, fully grown with beautiful steel gray fur, slowly walked into the kitchen from the living room and, purring like a motor boat, casually rubbed up against Susan's legs. Susan reached down and lovingly picked up the twelve pound animal. She scratched Eleanor's head, then set her back onto the floor. "I think my babies have missed me," she said.

She felt good. She was sure they weren't coming tonight. At times she regretted her stubbornness which tied her to living on this acreage. It was a good five miles from town. She was vulnerable out here. She knew that. A mad man could easily break into her house and rape her, or worse. The beasts who had been her constant visitors could, if they ever chose to show themselves to her during the day, come here and do who knew what to her? A normal human being would be terrified living on this twenty acres under these circumstances, but Susan wasn't a normal human being. She was tough and she was stubborn. And no one - no one would drive her off this beautiful place.

And Susan had a guardian whom she trusted with her life. Her guardian was Thor. Thor would tear to pieces any living thing that would threaten her, whether it be human or nightmare. Of this she was sure of.

She ate a casual supper. Sometimes she made a considerable effort to cook a nice meal, but at other times she would open a can of soup and warm it in the microwave. Tonight she ate soup. She could cook veggies in her wok tomorrow night.

After she finished her meal, she went into the stables and talked to her horses. She considered taking a ride on Elmo, the big bay her father had given her, but thought better of it. The weekend was only two days away; she would ride him then.

She came back into the house. The house seemed empty without Brian. She reached for the phone and almost dialed his number, but at the last moment she put the carry-phone down. Inviting him back into her life would be the biggest mistake she could possibly make right now.

Susan went to the cupboard, opened the door and took the whiskey bottle from the shelf. She looked at the bottle in her hand, then set it down. No, she didn't need to drink tonight. They weren't coming for her tonight. She toyed with the idea of sitting down with the bottle and a glass and slowly sipping. After all, what would be the harm in that? she asked herself. Not knowing how or why she talked herself out of it, she put the bottle back into the cupboard and closed the door.

"So you've decided not to even talk to me?" Brian looked down at Susan sitting at the lunch table in the student commons. "You could at least say hello. We still work in the same place. You could at least give me the courtesy of a nod."

Susan slowly and deliberately wiped her mouth with her napkin and looked up at this handsome man who didn't fit her emotional bill. "I hate you when you beg," she said.

"You hate me when I don't."

Susan sighed deeply. "Stop it, Brian. Don't take this so personal."

Brian sat down across from her. "Personal? Just how am I supposed to take it then? We were getting along fine last week. You dumped me so fast I didn't even see it coming."

Susan put her head in her hands. "Why do relationships have to be so complicated?" she said through her fingers. She looked at Brian and said, "I refuse to feel sorry for you."

"Why? Because you've started to feel sorry for him?" Brian wagged his head, motioning to a forlorn looking man sitting alone at a table across the way.

Susan started in her chair. "It's him. It's the man who came to my door the other day."

Brian leaned over and said angrily but quietly, "Yeah, same guy. Now you can go to his door."

Susan's eyes fixed on the man at the table. She stood up shakily. "Excuse me, Brian."

"Oh, yeah, sure. Why not? Go. He needs you much more than I need you."

She turned and gave Brian a firm look of displeasure. Then she walked to the man who today looked even more pathetic than when she had seen him the first time last week. "Hello," Susan said cautiously.

"Hello," the man said.

"May I sit down?"

"Yes."

She sat. "How are you?" Susan asked. She realized it was bold to ask such a question of a man she didn't even know, but she was concerned for him. She wanted to know.

"I'm all right."

"Truly?" She looked into his eyes.

"I'm all right," he said again.

She could see his hands shaking. He tried to hide them, but it was too late; his hands were already out in the open and they began shaking violently.

"What's wrong with you?" Susan asked. "Do you know what's wrong with you? Are you on something?"

The man looked puzzled. "On something? What does that mean - on something?"

"Drugs," she whispered. "I know this is damned forward of me to come right out and ask you if you are on drugs, but if you are, I can find help for you."

"I'm hungry," the man said simply.

"When have you eaten last?" Susan asked.

The man looked up at the ceiling and closed his eyes as if deep in thought. "Three days." His voice cracked as he said it.

"Three days ago?" Susan said, alarmed. "You haven't had anything to eat in three days?"

The man put his head down. "No. I'm very hungry."

Susan quickly stood up. "Come with me."

The man pushed back his chair and said shakily, "I don't know if I can walk, ma'am."

Susan looked across the cafeteria. "Brian?" she called.

Brian mouthed, 'Leave him alone,' and slowly shook his head from side to side.

Fine. She could do this without him. She went to the man and put her arm around him, then slowly pulled him to his feet.

"Where are we going?" the man asked.

"To my office. It's just out the door and into the next building. I can call for help if you don't think you can walk that far."

"No, I think I can walk that far."

"Lean on me, then."

The man leaned against her and they slowly made their way out of the cafeteria, out of the building, and then to her office. People looked at her as they bumbled down the hallway, but if they weren't good friends she ignored them and if they were good friends she told them she didn't need their help.

When they reached her office she sat him down. "Would you prefer the door open or closed?" Susan asked.

"Close it, please. I don't want to be seen this way."

This was the first hint of pride the man had shown her. In this simple request he suddenly didn't seem so pathetic to her. She closed the door. Then she opened the door of her refrigerator. "I try to eat healthy," she said. "I have a well stocked fridge here at work. I only eat at the commons when I'm bored."

"Are you still friends with the medical caretaker?" the man asked.

Startled, Susan said, "That's a strange question."

The man looked at her, puzzlement on his face. "It is a strange question, isn't it?"

Susan said, "You have to eat something. What would you like?"

"Anything," the man said. "I will eat anything you care to give me."

"I'll make you a sandwich," Susan said. She made the man a ham sandwich with cheese on it. He needed a robust meal, but she was careful not to give him something that would be difficult to digest because she knew a stomach that hadn't had food in it for three days was no doubt tender and easy to irritate.

She cut the sandwich up into small pieces and put them on a saucer. Then she had the man sit down at the small conference table she used for anything but conferences. "I'd give you coffee, but that might be a bit too much for your stomach. Shall we start with water?"

"Please," the man said. He began to eat the sandwich and quickly turned to stuffing it into his mouth.

"Hey, hey," Susan said. She took his wrist in her fingers to restrain him. "You can't eat it that fast. You'll end up with a stomach ache bigger than Chicago."

"Yes," he said shakily, "I don't want a stomach ache." He slowed then. When he finished he sat back against his chair and almost sagged with relief. "Thank you very much, ma'am."

"Don't call me ma'am," Susan said. "Call me Susan. Most people call me Susan." Susan thought it curious the way he was stiffly formal in the way he spoke one minute, then almost casual the way he spoke the next.

"Your name is Susan?"

"Yes. May I ask your name?"

"I don't know."

Susan giggled. "You mean you don't know if I should ask your name?"

"No. I mean I don't know my name."

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