Accounting wasn't really his life, it was his hobby. Eight hours a day, the young, pale man dressed in his conservative grey suit (he had eight, all exactly the same; one for each day of the week, and one he wore while the others were being drycleaned) sat at his desk and fudged the numbers, creeping up Halberstom and Halberstom's percentages of profit.

At home, firmly ensconced in his protective nest, he read voraciously, doing battle with the extensive escapist literature which had become America's publishing heritage. His opinions ruled this world; a snort of disgust at an amateurish attempt towards plot reconciliation in the latest KEVIN STING: HERO OF MISSION IMPROBABLE, a kingly decree that MAJOR HAVOC was in fact one of the best new books in at least two months, these were words of life and death for his fribbling subjects.

One day, a change occurred in his life which was to broaden his horizons for that eternity which humans call their span of life. Normally, that class of situations and happenstance encountered in the daily ebb and flow of a vocationally#organized life, described as 'strange', or 'disturbing', are unable to permeate the hard shell of such a schedule of habits. However, Harry Snickler had recently been having what is called in the business a "bad day for the books". In fact, it had been a bad week for Harry. It was only Thursday, and his weekend already seemed cursed.

On Monday, walking home from work, he had been startled by a wounded pigeon, one of its wings broken, as it fluttered violently into his path. It wasn't a smallish bird, although it seemed an exceptionally grimy one. Its swollen, tumorous leg extended from beneath the broken wing, its eyes were both crusted shut with a slimy noxious substance.

Harry halted. The filthy creatures filled him with disgust everytime he saw them, wishing he could kick them out of his path. The nausea of imagined contact with their infested bodies held his foot back everytime. Rats of the sky, he'd heard them called, and he agreed. Dirty vermin pests.

Unable to bring himself to step over the weakly struggling form, he merely stood and gazed at it, unsure as how to proceed. If he wasn't such a prude about touching filth and disease, even with the toe of his shoe, he'd have kicked it into the gutter, or under the tire of a passing car.

Deciding to leave it to its own suffering fate, he was about to step over it and move on when a whoosh of color and activity swept him aside. A middle-aged blonde woman, wearing a business skirt and tennis-shoes, carrying an umbrella and briefcase to which were attached a pair of high-heeled pumps, plopped her heavy loads onto the sidewalk and came right at him. Flinging up his arms protectively, he braced himself for the blow, but it never came.

Peering out from his between his fingers, he saw the woman leaning over the bird, picking it up. He took a step back, watching as she grabbed the birds neck forcefully in both hands, twisting it hard and quick with a loud sickening crack. Flinging the dead birds body into a nearby trashcan, she lifted her belongings and, almost as quick as shed arrived, was gone.

Harry, recovering, walked over to the trashcan, tugged by a nebulous fascination. Staring in at the birds distorted form, lying atop a crumpled section of the Sunday times, he watched as blood slowly pooled and congealed on a newsprint photo of yesterdays presidential speech. Dribbling into a halo above the presidents head, the liquid tension suddenly broke and blood trailed out and over the tiny black and white crowd of dignitaries, washing them in red.

"Noooo!" a loud wail cried out from the street. Harry, startled, looked up just as a disheveled looking man rushed at him through the maze of annoyed traffic. Pushing Harry roughly aside, the bad-smelling man peered aghast at the bird.

Turning, he gazed into Harry's eyes. The man was mad, crazy, Harry thought. His face was unfocused, consumed by twitches. Grabbing Harry's lapels, he shook him thoroughly, pressing his face up close until Harry turned away, repulsed by his breath. "It was me! That bird was meant for me!" he cried. Harry attempted to free himself from the maniacal grip, to no avail. "Please, sir, let go of me," he pleaded with the man.

Eventually, after what seemed an eternity, the fingers loosened and detached. Harry quickly stepped back out of reach. "It was for me," the man quietly sobbed, burying his face in his hands. Harry glanced around. people were watching him. His face began to burn, he became angry at himself for having become involved.

The man collapsed inwardly, tears streaming down his face. He lifted the bird gingerly up from its final perch. Harry started to turn away, moving on. Behind him, he heard the man yell in fright, then car tires screeched and the sound of breaking glass echoed through the city's cement canyons. He sped up, quickly walking as fast as he could, never looking back.

The secure order of his simple apartment calmed him. The pleasantries of ritual washed the unsettling incident from the past, calming the seething confusion of feelings inside.

He picked up the mail Raymond, the doorman, always held for him and settled down in his armchair. Flicking on the evening news, he let its soothing noise flow out and fill his mind with distraction. The memory of the dirty mans touch lingered around him like a stale, odiferous cloud.

The golden letter opener, a gift from his father before his death, sat in its correct place next to the boxes for good mail and junk mail. Grabbing its smooth black ivory handle, he slit the first envelope with the long gold blade, end to end. Inserting his fingers into its innards he extracted the latest booklists from Prime Publishers. JIMMY SWIGGERT, PIRATE OF THE WEST

no. 23 had just come out and there was a sale which covered all the back-issues of THE BOYS IN VIETNAM. A tiny modicum of pleasure began to creep back into Harry's life.

Setting it aside, he picked up a simple hand-addressed envelope. It had no postmark, no postage. What was this, he thought, another message from his landlord about the water-pipes? He scowled, hating the images that filled his mind with the memories of previous hot water disruptions. Repeating the slitting motion, he pulled out a folded sheet of nearly blank paper. Written across the top in a messy scrawl was his name, Harry Snickler. He furrowed his brow, scanning down the page. In the middle, in the same hand, two small boxes were sketched. To the right of the one which had a red check mark inside it the word 'unsatisfactory' stood out boldly. 'Unsatisfactory'? What was this? Some kind of practical joke? The only other words in the communication were beside the unmarked box, which stated 'satisfactory', and a completely illegible scrawl at the bottom which resembled a signature. Harrumphing in disgust at the offensive, confusing bulletin, he crumpled it angrily in his fist and threw it into the wastebasket, along with the envelope. Not even in his own home could he escape the abusive taunting harassment of his peers.

Tuesday was uneventful, aside from the annoying presence of Tim Maruder, a young energetic accountant the firm had recently taken on. Popular with the ladies, he loved to taunt Harry and make his life unbearable. Swallowing the bilious hatred that rose in his throat everytime Tim walked by, he made it through the relatively normal day at work and had a very relaxing evening at home, re-reading one of the Japanese serial books, SHIBATSU WARRIOR. Monday slipped from his memory, forgotten.

On Wednesday lunch break, his favorite booth at the diner had been taken. A busload of foreign tourists had descended from their netherworld, intent on singling out his life to disrupt. Waiting in line for an available seat wasn't that bad: it would have been tolerable, he could have gotten through that, if it hadn't been for the short man with the camera.

"Hauscku ko tomariskut?" the squat, foreign man said, shoving an ancient american export camera into Harrys face. Stepping back, trying to keep the chunky piece of equipment from damaging his nose, Harry found himself cornered against a coatrack. Once again, the man shoved the camera at him, grabbing his hand and placing it firmly in his resistent grasp. Hounding him, pressing up against his body, the mans sweaty, pug#nosed face leered through the greasy restaurant air. "Ona karatousik, ona karatousik!" he insisted, gesturing out through the diners window at the street outside. Harry tried to force the camera back upon its owner, shaking his head in the international sign for "no".

"No, no. Sorry. No help." What was he to say to someone with whom communication was impossible? But the man ignored him, grabbing Harrys elbow and pointing out the window.

Harry turned and looked; outside on the pavement, a young man lay sprawled, his head a thick crimson stain which was leaking down into the gutter. Harrys stomach flip flopped, his appetite suddenly departing. A crowd of people had gathered, pressing in like a platoon around the wounded. The boy had been hit by a car, knocking him off his bicycle. His discarded helmet lay nearly under the cars front wheel, the bicycle's twisted form scattered a few yards down the road.

The man forced Harrys hand with the camera up to his face: take a few pictures, Harry realized... that was all the man wanted of him. Wishing to get out of this obligation as soon as possible, feeling his queasy stomach, Harry raised the viewfinder to his eye. The lens was cloudy, dusty, unwashed. The magnified image of the young man slowly became evident through the grime. He depressed the button once, twice; click click. Two pictures. About to hand the camera back, he hesitated.

Peering in close on the mans head, he felt something stir within him. Was it the slow trickling of blood which dripped slowly out of a matted clump of hair, migrating like a slow lava sludge in thin rivulets across the gum#strewn sidewalk which affected him? Perhaps, but he couldn't be sure. He felt his vision drawn into the rectangular world of the lens. The mans head seemed to fit perfectly within its dimensions. The eyes suddenly opened, his mouth gaping like a fish. A bubble of blood lifted slowly and burst from within, flowing out and over the mans lips. His face began to tremble with minute vibrations.

Suddenly, the skull cracked almost cleanly down the middle, bisecting his nose and jaw, the two halfs rolling apart like a ripe cantaloupe. Harry gagged, unable to lower the camera, watching as brains and fluid spilled out onto the sidewalk in an explosive release of pressure. His finger wavered on the verge of tension and disgust, finally clicking another picture almost against his will. He dropped the camera from his eyes, breathing heavily, feeling the sweat on his forehead. Looking around frantically at the fleshy hoard that surrounded him, he thrust the camera into the eager mans waiting hands and pushed his way out the door.

The rest of the workday was a nightmare of tension. The numbers didn't make any sense, he couldn't concentrate. Eventually, the clock slowly ticked over into five-o-clock, and he was free. Rushing outside, he exhaled forcefully, as if he had been holding his breath for hours.

That night, he recalled the incident with a strange mixture of loathing and attraction. His imagination, filled with the countless pages of literary blood-battles, found something alluring in the raw experience, a sense of detachment that took him outside of the normalcy of his life. Distracted by his thoughts all the next day at work, time flew by. Floating in the memories and mysteries of yesterdays incident, he sat unaware of his body. Even the taunts that Tim heaped upon him in front of the secretaries, who all laughed behind their hands, disappeared like water off his back. Even the floor supervisor, Tom Stanton, calling him into his office with an extra load of forms to process that evening didn't faze him. No sign of stress or anger bubbled to the surface, increasing his pulse rate.

Finally, again, five o clock came around as it had every other day of the last four years. Falling asleep in his warm bed to the background of the late-late news, he was just starting to dream that Connie Chung had gone to join the British secret service when the telephone rang.

"He.. hello?" he fumbled into the handset, catching it from falling off the nightstand.

"That was very good the other day." a dark, monotonous voice responded.

"Excuse me?" Harry said, struggling to awake.

"Your performance was excellent. I and the others just wanted to congratulate you. You're coming along much better."

"Who is this?" Harry demanded, sitting upright. Just then, the phone rang again. Confused, he looked at the receiver in his hand. The loud ring continued. It was the doorbell.

"Hold on, you," he spoke hurriedly into the phone, setting it down on the table. he hurriedly donned one of his numerous grey bathrobes and hastened to the door.

Peering through the eye-hole, he saw a tan, clean-cut face staring back at him. He undid the chain and cracked the door open.

"What is it?" he demanded. The man spoke loudly into his face, startling him into opening the door a little more.

"Jed Chesterfield, with the Organization. May I come in?"

Before Harry had time to protest, the man had shoved his way past Harry and into the kitchen, where he turned on the light and sat down heavily at the table. Lifting a big brown suitcase onto his lap, he flipped the clasps open. Harry watched in amazement, dumbfounded, too startled to feel afraid.

"Excuse me, but its two in the morning."

"This wont take a minute," Jed said, smiling. Glancing at the sheaf of papers he'd extracted from the suitcase, he read out loud from the top sheet.

"Harry Snickler?"

Harry's mouth moved open and closed in baffled silence.

"I assume that means yes," Jed spoke wryly, crinkling his lips into a beurocratic disdain, continuing.

"Well, Harry, i'm afraid you didn't do too well on the last one. Is everything ok? No financial problems? Well good," Jed rattled on, brushing over Harrys impotent attempts at speech.

"I'm just here to let you know that we want you to do well." he said, ruffling the papers into order.

Before Harry could even think to threaten him with a phone call to the police, Jed had snapped shut his suitcase and was shaking his hand.

"Well, i'm glad we've had this little chat. Nice meeting you, and keep on the good work. It pays off, in the end, you know. Hope you aren't thinking about dropping out now. Keep the chin up," he chattered, already moving out the door.

Harry stood watching in amazement as the door slammed shut, leaving him alone. He rushed to the door and chained it, leaning back against its cool hard surface and sliding down to the floor in exhaustion, trying to calm his speeding heart. The phone. He remembered the phone. Hurrying back to the bedroom, he lifted the receiver again.

"Hello?" he said. It sounded empty, no one was on the other end.

"Who was that?" the voice spoke after an eternity.

"Who is this?" Harry demanded, getting angry. "Is this a crank call? I wont stand for this, you know, ill call..."

"What did they tell you? Damn them" the voice swore with restrained fury. "Do not believe them. The last test was satisfactory. Well done, continue on." it said, and suddenly only the dial tone remained.

Harry stood sweating in his nightgown. Slowly replacing the receiver, he sank dejectedly onto the bed. Fumbling in the bed-stand drawer, he got out two sleeping pills. His hands shaking, he gulped them down dry and lay back on the bed. Eventually, the darkness took him away.

PART II

It must have been nearly a month later when Harry was called into work on a Saturday. April 15th was approaching, tax deadline, and the boss wanted everyone to put in some overtime to get the heavy workload done. The past had slipped his memory into a mere foggy annoyance so calloused by time and repetition that it slid over his mind like silk over a smooth stone.

From the very first minute when he had to share the elevator with Tim and Wendy, silently taking their abuse, to the extra large pile heaped upon his desk, he knew a bad day lay before him. Fidgeting with the pencils on his desk, fantasies of Tim's head getting crushed under a bulldozer floated by, satisfying in their clarity. When his desk stapler ran out of staples, he had to run the gauntlet of harassment, walking past rows and rows of murmuring co-workers, stifling their giggles behind closed hands. On top of it all, there were no staple supplies left on the entire floor.

Sitting waiting for the supply assistant to run down and pick some up, Harry gazed over at the 'loquacious romeo'. Tim was always busy, always happy, though Harry knew he never got any of his work done. He knew because somehow, at the end of the day, Tim's accounts seemed mysteriously to worm their way onto Harry's desk, unfinished.

"Staples?" the assistant said, interrupting the SHIBATSU #4 ninjas from crashing through the window and slicing Tim's head off. Harry shoved the gleaming metal rows roughly into the stapler. If tim wanted to be an annoyance, let him. The clock read three. Only two more hours, and...

"Ahhh!" a shriek rent the air, splitting his skull. "Help! Help! Ohmigod!" Leaping out of his seat, glancing wildly around, Harry saw a crowd rushing over to Tims desk.

Moving closer, he caught sight of Tim stretched out on his desk, jerking violently. Pushing in between two buxom secretaries paralyzed with shock he saw Tim grasp his stomach, curling into a fetal position. His nicely tanned face was becoming blotchy, turning a dark bruised purple. Blood spewed from his mouth, spattering paperwork.

"Get an ambulance! Somebody! Quick!" one of the other workers called, running back to the bosses office. Tim flailed his arms, trying to scream, but all that escaped was a choking bubbling sound, filled with liquid. Two men held him down on the desk, trying to stop him from hurting himself. Harry felt a cold sweat break out down his back. Guilt... certainly, even though he knew whatever was happening had nothing to do with him. It was his thoughts, only his thoughts which were culpable, not his actions. This had nothing to do with reality.

Tim let out a screech, long and exhaustive. In one final, convulsive shudder, he spit up volumes of blood, his hands ripping frenzily at his stomach, tearing his red-soaked shirt, scraping long bloody gashes into his skin. And then, he went limp.

"Out of the way! Out of the way! Come on, move it," a man thrust Harry aside, pushing him into a wall. Men with medical equipment, tubes, tanks, and machines piled in, surrounding the table. Harry walked back to his desk. A hand on his shoulder stopped him from sitting. He turned.

"Harry. Looks like you've got a little more work tonight. Don't worry," Tom said, patting him on the back, "Well make it worth you're while. Oh, and the top boss wants to see you in his office."

As the floor supervisor walked away, one of the medical team walked by, shaking his head. He caught Harrys eyes.

"What is it? Whats wrong?" Harry stuttered.

"Hemorrhage. The guy mustve been bleeding all day, real bad case."

"Is he..." the medic saw the word in his eyes.

"Yep, fraid so. He's dead."

Harry sat down heavily. He felt an empathic fear, certainly, remorse, perhaps... although gore had ceased to shock him recently. On a much different level, he had begun to suspect that allowing a certain fanciful freedom to ones daydreams, while enervating and cathartic, created a mental climate of pure hell. He didn't know what to think. Was he responsible for Tim's death merely because he had wished him dead? Impossible, he laughed at himself uneasily. Remembering the summons, he calmed himself with a deep breath and strolled reservedly towards the elevator.

Graphic images of Tims contorted face accompanied him into the silent pneumatic cube. He'd been up to Jerry Halberts big executive office twice before. Once last easter as a result of his pestering for a raise, and then that fiasco with the union, both experiences of extreme nervous tension. He punched the top floor button, watching the lights ascend to thirteen.

The elevator halted, bumping his feet against the hard floor. The door swooshed open on its air driven tracks. Stepping out into the office, a gigantic room serviced only by the elevator confronted him, forcing his self image into a tiny little space.

Jerry sat at his desk, his chair turned away, the top of his head peeking out above the padded leather backrest. The phone cord disappeared into the nodding head.

"Come in, come in, have a seat." the chair seemed to command. Harry moved to a small hard seat that sat in front of the desk. A hand appeared from behind the chair, waving at him. "Ill just be a minute."

Harry sat and fidgeted while half listening in on the one sided phone talk. What was this about? He rubbed his sweaty palms against each other, feeling his face begin to blush as visions of his own nightmarish imagination played themselves out. Could it be...

The hand emerged from the chair, replacing the phone.

"Harry Snickler..." Jerry said, abruptly wheeling the chair around. Harry balked. It wasn't Jerry at all! An older, grey haired man supplanted him, stirring up Harry's thoughts. Was there some kind of shakeup in the ranks? Was he to be fired? His nervousness increased, hazing his vision and setting his teeth clenching against themselves.

"Wheres Jerry?" he finally spoke haltingly.

"Jerry's had to step out for a couple minutes. He's asked me to take care of things with you," he smiled with a strange grimace.

"Harry, its come to our attention recently... twizzler?"

"Excuse me?" Harry said. Perhaps he hadn't heard right.

"I said, twizzler?" the man held out a stick of candy from a box.

"Oh thank you," Harry said, relieved. He must stop working himself up. Stress was alien to him outside of his routines, he must convince himself that enemies didn't always lurk behind every door. Accepting the twirled peppermint, he began slowly to suck on it.

"As I was saying, we've put a lot of faith in your work. There were some inconsistencies early on, but you've improved greatly." he halted, thumping his fingers upon the desk. Harry soaked up the small praise like a sponge.

"However," he continued, his words dropping like stones into Harry's stomach, "graduation is near, as you know, and we feel you have much greater potential than you've exhibited. Perhaps a little more enthusiasm, a bit more time spent in pursuing your studies. It would make all the difference." Leaning back, the man lifted a cigar from the desk and relit it, puffing exorbitant smoke into a dense cloud floating in the still air.

Harry let the words soak in, struggling to compensate for the inconsistencies. Graduation? Was he talking about promotion?

"I'm sorry, sir, but i'm afraid I don't really understand..."

"Understand? Why, Harry, i'm surprised. You're so close to achieving honors in the field! Come on, show a little more self confidence! Take things into you're own hands. Look at all this.." the man turned, taking in the huge picture window, the monstrous bookshelves and video screens, the expensive liqueur cabinet and Chippendale furniture. "Why, this could all be yours someday!" Leaning close across the desk, locking eyes with Harry, he spoke in low tones.

"Don't blow it, boy... you're this close" he gestured with his fingers, sitting back heavily into the chair and inhaling long and hard on the cigar. Confused, Harry sat in silence, wondering if he should say anything at all or just shut up. The twizzler disappeared entirely into his mouth, gone.

"Go on now, get out there and do the best you've ever done in your whole life. Go for the gold son!" the elder man pushed a button on his desk and the elevator doors slid open. Harry rose uncomfortably, shaking the mans extended hand. Walking zombie-like into the elevator, he watched the room disappear between the closing doors.

Back downstairs, he watched the janitor perform his morbid duty cleaning up Tims desk. It really had happened. Everyone else had gone home. Lost and alone in the fluorescent-clad room crammed with empty desks, he asked the janitor if Tom had left also. Receiving a terse affirmative, he slowly lifted piles from his desk, shuffling them half-heartedly into order. It was only ten after four. The non-communicative janitor worked away, continuing to ignore his presence as if he was just another stain on the carpet. Harry frowned to himself, shoveling papers into his drawer and briefcase. The disorienting pep-talk started to fade from his mind, doubt and frustration replacing it. The whole job-career thing was starting to accumulate bad memories. Even though he really didn't want to consider finding another job elsewhere, his personality being almost entirely anathema to change, even one more week here was beginning to seem like a condemnation to hell for all eternity.

Gazing around the room, his hand on the elevator door, a rebellious resolve welled up from deep inside, a resolve with the force of religious conviction. If this promotion-sounding possibility didn't work out in the next week, he was gone. Smiling to himself, he pressed the close button and sank with the elevator into a devout fantasy of self-importance.

That night, he suffered through a horrible dream. Was it a dream? Was it his? From some dark recess of his brain, the powers of sleep conjured up desires foreign to him. To kill, to destroy, to somehow strike back at the unjust plague which hemmed in his life. The small thrill that would have gone unnoticed during the waking hours amplified in its sleepy manifestation.

He felt alive, the tremors of feeling so absent in his daily life rose and surrounded him, urging him onward. It was night, and he was awake. Looking at his hands, he saw they were rough, tanned, not his. Throwing aside the bedcovers, he stood and walked wearily to the dresser, where a pack of cigarettes lay. He pulled one out and lit it, the match's flame making shadows dance on the walls.

A face in the mirror caught his attention. Was someone standing behind him? He turned, quickly; no one was there. The match went out, casing the room in darkness. He fumbled for another in the dim city light that filtered through the curtains.

He watched as the mirror again gave birth to the same face... his own, but not. Feeling along the wall for the lightswitch, he flipped it, finding himself in a small bare room illuminated by a single naked bulb. The bed was small, disheveled. A tiny stove sat next to the sink, cluttered with dirty pots and pans.

He felt an incredible urge to leave, to go outside. Someone was waiting for him, that much he knew. He threw on the rough jeans and shirt that lay on the bed. Something heavy fell out upon the floor when he lifted the jacket. Bending down, he lifted up a large shiny knife, turning it, staring at the beautiful glean of light reflecting off the blade. He shoved it into a loop inside the jacket pocket feeling it close over his heart, enjoying its solid comfort. In the dream, it was a familiar, his closest freind.

Outside, a broken streetlight buzzed on and off like a nocturnal chainsaw. He moved quickly through piles of broken glass, past vacant run down buildings and pools of distant street-lamps. He saw no-one. He walked alone through the deserted urban landscape.

Eventually, the streets got nicer, well-lit and clean. He moved swiftly around a corner. This was it. There was something familiar about the place, but he couldn't place it. Driven onward by an inner urgency, the thrill of adrenaline, he found the front door unlocked.

In the stairwell, his feet tread softly like kitten paws. Up, and up... it was the third floor. Pulling the door carefully, silently, open, he entered into a short carpeted hallway. An odious feeling of wrong crept over him, an electricity that tingled, setting every nerve on edge. It was wrong where he was going, what he was going to do, but he hungered for it, taking pleasure in the raw fear and excitement. The fourth door on the left... he stopped. It was locked. Innocuous looking in the dim hall light, painted a bare red, it frustrated him, prolonging the tension.

Feeling in his pockets, he retrieved a small worn hairpin. Harry watched the hands move with skill and dexterity, willing them on, caught up in the exhilaration and the speed. Shortly, a tiny rod moved over, a tiny click. He silently pushed the door open.

A chain blocked the way. Reaching around with his fingers, barely able to push it far enough, he managed to unhook it from inside. The door swung open.

The room was black as night, the hallway light spilling in created a thin corridor of sight. He closed the door behind him, not shutting it all the way. He pushed open the first door on the left. Darkness, no sound.

He moved onward, past the bathroom with its nightlight, to the end of the entrance hall. The plain white door was slightly ajar, issuing from within the sounds of sleep, the heavy muffled breathing of the dead to the world. Harry's breath quickened, willing the hand onward, watching as it slowly forced the door open.

A huddled figure lay with its arms over its head, obscuring its face. His hands slid down, into his jacket, removing the blade with a sensual feel Harry had never experienced before. Caressing it, seeing its silver glow in the dim light from the curtained window, his heart beat faster with a forbidden baccanalian thrill. His feet tread softly on the soft rug, bringing him close, standing over the inert body, sharing its breath. His knuckles, white, charged with a nervous overpowering tension, slowly pulled the covers back, raised the blade above the pajamaed chest, lingering, choosing its point, prolonging the pure sensations that flooded him.

The knife fell, plunging deep into the chest, ripping down, pulling the blade in a long arc, splitting the stomach and spilling out intestines and blood. The body leapt up, grabbing his arm, screaming with its airless lungs. Harry turned, a shaft of light from between the curtains falling directly on its face; fear and nausea split him from inside, tearing thought apart into white emotion, destroying all knowledge, exploding into the dust of a million minds. The face was his, staring back at himself, locking their gazes across a millennium of distance, an infinity of time.

That week, he didn't go to work at all. The phone rang and rang, until finally he answered it on Thursday. Tom was yelling at him, screaming: he had been fired.

After the call, he sat in his armchair, staring blankly at the wall, at the blurry faces on T.V. A man rang his doorbell, but Harry didn't move. Walking into the kitchen, he saw an express envelope on the floor. He put it on his mail shelf.

He must have dozed off, for when he awoke, it was the dead of night. The t.v. continued to blare, filling his head with emptiness. The dream, the dream... it had filled him with psychic shock, torn apart his strength to maintain the routines of daily life. It had destroyed his life.

Half-heartedly, he lifted the express package, turning the letter sharpener in his hands, examining it, remembering. Catching himself drifting, he lifted the package and slit it open. His hand was inserted inside, withdrawing a thin sheet of parchment, when a haze descended over his sight.

Reaching down inside him, the blur grew focused, and Harry felt a tiny stirring of fear break thorough his deadness. Light exploded inside his head, shattering into a million shards, being sucked and pulled by some whirlwind force into the center of the television set.

His head cleared, the room came swimming back. Gasping for air, the television newscaster on the screen seemed suddenly to change, mutate its form. Long tendrils full of videotic membrane spiked out from his body, tearing his suit. A mass of green quivering flesh faded in and out of being human and not. Its gelatinous eyeballs squeezed to the surface, its mouth gaped wide into a fang encrusted orifice.

"Congratulations," the thing spoke, spewing saliva and ooze down its face. Its head slowly deformed into a four-cornered cap, a brightly colored tassel dangling from its top.

"Harry, you've done very well. Unfortunately, it was not good enough for honors. May you have a long and profitable life, out in the real world."

The thing rotated its head on its stalk, bursting veins and brackish liquid, yelling "next!" off to one side of the screen. Turning back, Harry could have sworn that it smiled at him and then... it was gone. The t.v. blanked out to black, and then slowly static refuzzed the screen.

Shivering, feeling the coldness inside himself, Harry pulled out the parchment from the envelope and stared at the ornate, aged diploma, signed over to him.

EPILOGUE

He sits, now, alone in a small resting home upstate. The nurses all move around him, lifting him like furniture to clean under his chair. Another casualty of an unknown disease, he hasn't spoken in over thirty years. Under his paperwork, stashed away in the dark recess of an anonymous case workers file cabinet, there is still a tiny document, a scrap of paper barely held together by its aging, brittle fibers. What does it say? What does its faded ink scrawl read, this tiny chain back in time to a man who used to be alive?

Waiting, it says.

Waiting.