Part 2

She made her way to it without getting hit by the over-anxious drivers, unlocked the driver's side door, threw her bag into the back seat and herself into the driver's. Then she let go and sobbed and sobbed, hoping that if she got a "C" in Freshman Comp that it wouldn't turn out to be the excuse her parents needed to stop paying her tuition. They wanted Alona to work in the town's newly renovated theater, an investment in which they owned a small percentage.

Alona's sobs lasted for some time, and she knew, just knew, that her water-proof mascara had run, so she opened the glove compartment to find a Kleenex. Out fell a letter.

Her sobbing stopped as she picked it up from the dusty car floor. "Alona" was written, almost scribbled, on the cover. In Kurt's handwriting. She hadn't seen him in weeks, not since he began playing regularly in the band. She couldn't help picturing him the last time he was in her car, brushing back his long hair and scratching his hand in that nervous way of his.

"You're breaking up with me?" he asked, staring vaguely at the floor-mat.

She had nodded. What else could she do? Even she had finally admitted that he was just a good-looking loser. Sure, he could play the guitar and write songs, but she wouldn't be able to face her parents once they found out his most popular ballad was titled "Love Turds".

"This sucks," he muttered. Somehow, that had helped her keep her resolve, although in the weeks that had passed, her memory of that lonely quality of his, the one that had attracted her to him in the first place, had grown to almost god-like proportions.

Alona sighed and opened the letter.

Alona, (it read, unnecessarily)

O.K. I've had time to think about us. You shouldn't have broken up with me, but you're still cool, O.K.? I mean, even if you dont let me go all the way with you, your cool. So, like what I'm asking is should we get back together?

I know you don't think your parents will like me. But I'll grow on them. I'll write them a song that they'll like. Like 'Love Turds' but with different lyrics.

Any way, that's not what I wrote about. I mean, youre cool and all and I want to get back together with you but there's something else going on.

I'm probably going to loose my dayjob at Osco. Doesn't matter. Screwm all. But I think I know what's been in those weird boxes Osco orders that end up in Denny's car! Something big is going to happen and I think that all of those freeks who picked up the white lab coats are in on it. You remember them? Anyway--

Denny let it slip that some of that stuff was going to Seltzer or Sesame, or whatever. This all adds up! I'll let you know as soon as I can find out what's in them! Then I'll see if Tom if can get off his butt long enough to come with me to search for Seltsame -- Call me tonight after eight.

(I mean if you want to call me after eight. You don't have to but I shure would like to talk to you again about us and all of this and stuff, you know?)

Love, Kurt. PS. If you arnt getting back with me, can you give me back my Ugly Kid Joe CD?

8. The most effective form of rhetorical persuasion ever devised "If at first you don't succeed, try, try, and try again. Then give up. There's no use being a damned fool about it." -- W.C. Fields

"Hello!" cried Prof. Sigger, his voice drained of masculine resonance with panic. No one seemed to be around, except the long haired kid sharing his cell. The boy was hunched in the corner, arms folded around his stomach.

"Hello!" bellowed Prof. Sigger. "I'd like to visit the American Embassy! Unless of course this is the American Embassy, in which case I'd like to visit to the Russian Embassy! Ya neeminoga gavaru parusskie!"

From beyond a shadowed corner, a small man emerged wearing a white lab coat.

"About time! About fifteen minutes ago I was--" began Sigger.

"Contemplating making romantic overtures to a female student less than half your age," said the Lab Coat Man, reading from a yellow page stacked (neatly) in a clipboard.

"Well, yes," muttered Prof. Sigger. "Is that the reason I'm here?"

"We'd like to schedule your interview. Are you free in an hour?" he replied.

"You don't seem to be comprehending me! A minute ago I was in my office with a student! The next I'm here! You have a lot--"

"Entertainment is at seven, attendance mandatory, unless you have failed to complete part one of the interview."

"I'm not completing any damn interview until--"

"What the hell's for dinner?" the boy demanded.

"Let me see, let me see," said the Lab Coat Man, flipping through the pages on his clipboard.

"Excuse me. Point of order here..." began Prof. Sigger.

"That pizza today sucked."

"I certainly can't disagree with you there."

"I am negotiating for my release, so if we could stick to the topic -"

"Couldn't you have at least baked it instead of microwaving it?"

"Out of my control, I'm afraid."

"Am I invisible? Am I not part of this conversation?"

"Patience, Mr. Sigger," replied the Lab Coat Man, flipping back to his top sheet.

"Professor Sigger!"

"Frigging crybaby," muttered the boy.

"I'll have you know--!" bellowed Sigger, his voice cracking in a most un-John Wayne like fashion.

"Now, now," began the Lab Coat Man.

"So what's it going to be? More bad pizza?"

"La dee da, la dee da! Never mind that I'm here! I think I'll just find a corner and sit here while you two carry on this most important of conversations."

"Oh, no, Prof. Sigger, we have our interview. Not a thing we can skip."

"There's nothing you can say to make me!" Sigger cried, sulking in the corner farthest from Kurt.

"In answer to your question, Taco Bell," he replied, looking up from a red 2B.

"I think I'm going to puke," Kurt moaned, looking even rattier than before and visibly greener as the pronouncement set in.

"I'm ready for that interview now," muttered Prof. Sigger, trotting to the steel bars and waiting like an obedient schoolboy. The Lab Coat Man nodded and marked an 'X' on a white page.

9. A weird day's night "There is no such thing as an omen. Destiny does not send us heralds. She is too wise or too cruel for that." -- Oscar Wilde

Julia dashed into the Osco employees' entrance and punched in one second before four o'clock. Accomplishing her day's goal of being on somebody's payroll, she decided to catch her breath by sneaking a smoke in the restroom. She caught Rhonda's eye at the check-out counter, who gave her a smile and a nod that meant: "Join you in a second."

Kurt, aka. Butthead, hadn't replaced the dead bulbs yet, so Julia sat on a toilet lid inside a claustrophobic's nightmare of a stall with only pale, yellow light keeping her from absolute darkness. And the brief flame of the lighter, which she snapped closed as she took a strong, slow drag. Another night-shift to deal with old grannies looking for denture cream, kids trying to lift cigarettes, drunks picking up plastic violets for the wife. If only she didn't need to eat, Julia concluded, maybe she wouldn't have to work in a world that seemed more than a little unreal.

But then, that was the family legacy, wasn't it? Seeing something that wasn't there, or worse: trying to see something that wasn't there and almost succeeding. Find a farm out in Arizona and retire once you've had enough of being called crazy. But then, Julia knew that there were two kinds of people: those who couldn't live without air conditioning and her uncle. Another run-down, fix-it-up farm in this family was out of the question. She took another deep drag and wondered why she kept smoking these things. They were like beer, Uncle Justin had told her: after the War, they never went back to making them right. If only someone would just make some real changes in the world -- how long could it be before it was a better place to live? A better place than this? Wasn't that what everyone wanted? If so, why did everyone settle for what they had?

That's what her mother had done. Settled for Dad dying. Settled for the life of a reclusive widow, until she died too. Not much Julia could do but not make a conscious mess of her own life. Not that everything had gone perfectly. She had a job, she was going to school -- although Uncle Justin kept reminding her it was "only" for accounting. No science, no liberal arts. But she read a lot on her own. Mysteries, new fiction, the classics that were recommended by that stud of a librarian. Not that she understood all of it, but there was usually something to enjoy, to learn from. Especially questions about the Big Picture -- that always sparked her interest.

But Uncle Justin would just shake his head. It was a tech school, not a college or a university. Lord knows there are plenty of cheap schools in Wisconsin that offer some liberal arts courses, he would say. To say nothing of real science. He accused her of falling for the same trap his sister, Julia's mother, had fallen for: living in a Wisconso-centric universe. Once he brought this up, the conversation usually degenerated into combative silence. They never settled that argument -- it just kept going on its own, to the detriment of everyone's sanity.

Whether she was getting a real education or not, Julia found herself constantly searching for meaning. About what governed reality (whatever that was), about what was human will (assuming it existed), about the elusive qualities of soul (love, happiness, etc.), and about the urge to bury one's face in Godiva chocolate every twenty-eight days. The last question was more easily answered than the others. She took a long drag, determined to make this one last. One a day was bad enough, but she'd probably need another one after work if Denny was in one of his moods.

She leaned back on the toilet and stared at the pale, sodium light spread out across the ceiling. Deja vu. Something from a dream about lying back and watching the sky. How the sky and the ceiling in an Osco restroom were connected was beyond her, but what the hell -- there would be an entire evening for worrying about mundane problems. Like most of her dreams, she remembered it as another memory, one as real as a memory of a waking moment. And as usual, the memory of the dream seemed more vivid than her memory of what she had done this morning.

It came back to her -- the light in the sky had been yellow, almost gold, with a brown tint. That was what made it look so unusual, this dream-light. It wasn't the sunlight of the world when everyone is awake and concentrating on whatever was going on beneath them. A light reserved for people who didn't deserve it, or know what it was, or what it meant. At least, that's what it seemed like in the dream. Or maybe she had made all that up after she woke up. But she did remember it had altered into a haze, growing more uniform, covering the world in a grey aura. The white of the clouds gave way, under pressure of a great and unstoppable force, to something else, which she couldn't describe. This, whatever it was, blanketed the sky, offering neither snow nor rain, instead smothering the world below from whatever was above. Except now, the clouds began to descend.

In parallel streams, this gray sky, this aura seemed to move toward her. Julia felt herself begin to giggle, that nervous giggle when she knew something was wrong but didn't know what. And then she realized that she wasn't just remembering the dream -- the haze was overheard was coming through the ceiling, causing the restroom lights to bend and shimmer. Julia stopped giggling and stared upward, her eyes fixed on whatever it was that she knew she had to be imagining. But just as suddenly the gray haze retreated until it had returned to whatever unknown sky it had descended from.

Julia felt her body constrict itself to form another giggle, but none came. She stood up, tossed the butt into the toilet, and quickly lit another cigarette. Nicotine euphoria swept through her body, but it would not take her to wherever it was she desperately needed to go. She dropped the cigarette to the floor and crushed it under her foot.

"Now that was disappointing," she muttered. She felt her throat knot up with sadness until she heard someone move outside the door. She looked at her watch -- she had wasted fifteen minutes, and now the restroom smelled terribly guilty.

The bathroom door creaked open. The fan located above Julia's well chosen stall expelled the smoke and Julia began flapping her hand as quietly as she could to speed the smoke on its way.

"Julia?" asked a voice.

"Rhonda?" Julia whispered conspicuously. The restroom door quickly closed and Rhonda scuttled into the stall next to Julia.

"Quick! Give me a drag!"

Julia, heretofore holding her breath, exhaled in relief and passed another cigarette and the lighter into Rhonda's hand hovering under the partition.

"I thought you were Butthead looking into the restroom again," Julia said.

Julia heard Rhonda inhale and exhale in rhythmic, sage-like fashion. "No," Rhonda finally answered, "somebody said he called in sick."

Rhonda's hand appeared under the stall again holding the lighter. Julia took it from her as they both heard a man's voice from outside the door.

"Rhonda? Julia?"

"That ain't Butthead!" whispered Rhonda. Both toilets flushed, as if their actions in unison would provide an air-tight alibi which, notwithstanding the stern tone in the voice outside, caused them both to giggle. They emerged sheepishly from the restroom as Supervising Manager Denny frowned and shook his head disapprovingly.

"Rhonda, where's Kurt?"

"Sick, I think. Someone said he called in with a stomach ache."

"Then he's fired too."

"Too?!" exclaimed Julia.

"Well, let's see, Julia. You missed your shift yesterday without calling in..."

"I did?"

"You did. And that's the third time this month."

"I can't believe I did it again!"

"You did. And you don't have to tell me which novel you were reading. I don't need to know." He turned to Rhonda. "And I figure if you leave now, we won't need to talk about the beauty supplies that go missing just before your days off."

Rhonda's eyes widened uncontrollably as she gave a guilty grin to the floor tiles.

"So, adios!" With that, he returned to the Osco floor.

Julia's jaw slackened but Rhonda pealed into outright laughter.

"It's not funny!" shouted Julia.

"Oh, forget this Popsicle-stand! You punched in, right?"

A smile formed reluctantly on Julia's face. "Well," continued Rhonda, "let''s take off and punch ourselves out in eight hours!"

The smiles and laughter became contagious as they grabbed their jackets and ran out the back door. The spent the rest of the afternoon taking in all of the shops that lined both sides of the street. Eventually, they found themselves at Popeye's pub, where they had a sandwich and a few beers, and decided to kill the rest of the evening with a movie. After a short walk, they saw the marquee, which read: "BRIDE, GHOULS, & PLAN 9!" Rhonda seemed to have noticed it first, taking Julia's hand and leading her toward the theater.

10. The Second Phase "There was a point to this story, but it has temporarily escaped the chronicler's mind." -- Douglas Adams, "So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish"

"Well done!" the Lab Coat Man exclaimed, rubbing his eyes and replacing the pen in his coat pocket, "Very well done! Not many subjects have been able to answer our comprehensive questionnaire in under three hours."

Prof. Sigger forced a smile to his drawn face. "I take it most people are reluctant to answer your questions without knowing how and why they arrived in a place like this." The room, like the holding area, was also concrete, although this section looked more like an office than a jail.

"That long haired fellow," the Lab Coat Man confided, "we pulled him out of a urinal. Dirty trick, really. Maybe he thinks we're all drug-induced hallucinations. As far as he's concerned, he was leaning against the bathroom wall in order not to stain his shoes and the next moment he's peeing in our corner."

Sigger tried to nod sympathetically.

"Hasn't completed the interview yet," he continued. "Oh that doesn't mean I haven't been able to take a few notes, but I guarantee he'll be missing out on the entertainment for some time to come!"

"Now that I've answered your questions, let me ask you --" Prof. Sigger began.

"No time. I have a number of errands to run. You'll find we're quite organized, once you've been here a while."

"A while?"

"Yes, this may take some time. All good projects do, as I'm sure you understand." Sigger nodded dumbly.

"Now I'm going to turn you over to my assistant, Neoldner."

The door opened, and twenty year-old resembling a ferret and wearing an identical lab coat entered, a clipboard in his hand.

"He's going to help with the second phase," the Lab Coat Man said.

"Hey," Neoldner said.

"Um... yes," Sigger replied.

Neoldner took the seat across from Sigger as the Lab Coat Man moved to the doorway. Forrester, with his strange brown mustache, popped his head into the room.

"I'm going home to finish to schedule for tomorrow this evening. Do you have everything?" Forrester asked.

"How could I? You haven't told me what I need yet," the Lab Coat Man replied.

"I haven't?"

"No, I've been with Prof. Sigger since..." He looked at his watch. "It has been a while, hasn't it?"

Prof. Sigger shrugged, although no one noticed that he had answered.

"I thought Frank would have told you," Forrester said.

"Who's Frank?" asked the Lab Coat Man.

"Oh, I forgot! Frank resigned. That's when we brought you in."

"Right. Just after what's-his-name resigned."

"Frank."

"Exactly."

"That's what I said."

"I know, I just repeated it."

Silence.

"So do you need a list?" Forrester asked.

"If you wouldn't mind. And whatever forms you'll think I'll need."

"Ah, forms. Yes. Definitely. Meet me at my office before you go."

And out popped Forrester's head from the room. The Lab Coat Man sighed and turned to Prof. Sigger.

"Once we're ready, we should be able to conclude everything quickly. Neoldner will help you out with the details. I think you'll enjoy the perks. The travel. The entertainment, if you like that sort of thing."

"What about the entertainment?" Sigger asked.

"Soon!" replied the Lab Coat Man, misunderstanding, his eyes twinkling with an annoying but enigmatic flare.

"So," Neoldner began after the Lab Coat Man had left, "what size jacket do you wear?"

11. An Unintended Mishap "It is a curious thought, but it is only when you see people looking ridiculous that you realize just how much you love them." -- Agatha Christie

Tom walked into his parents' trailer home to find Alona crying on the couch. He barely knew her, saw her only twice before, and with Kurt, so he figured she had to be a loser.

"Why are you here?" he grumbled.

"Kurt's missing!" she shouted, and let loose with a protracted wail. Tom's mother came in and hugged Tom tightly, then slapped him across the cheek. "Your cousin's gone missing, and you don't care!"

Tom rubbed his cheek and said, "He's probably just sleeping off a date with Rhonda in her backseat!"

Alona wailed again. Tom couldn't help thinking that if that wail had been sung, it would have raised the hackles of even the greatest opera devotee, a majestic solo of anguish and a thousand angry paper-cuts.

"Sorry," muttered Tom.

"The police won't do anything until he's been gone twenty-four hours!" Betty exclaimed. "Twenty-four hours! And he disappeared while he was playing in that band of his!" She went on to explain how Alona had called after she received a letter from Kurt -- how he hadn't been at home or with the band -- how, according to the other members of the band and a half-dozen other witnesses, he had disappeared the night before from a bathroom with no windows. Tom listened to most of this and nodded. He kept nodding even after he stopped listening. Once his mother was done talking, he stopped nodding. She didn't seem to notice the difference.

The TV across the room was on a little too loud, so he decided to shut it off, grab a sandwich, and sneak out of the house again. Maybe he should go into work, even though he had the night off. Maybe get a second job. He had to earn enough to move out of here. Enough to move out yesterday.

"And this just in at WXOR," said the newscaster. "An English professor -- "

"Turn up the TV, Tommy, will you?!" Betty shouted. Tom sighed, annoyed at being called Tommy in front of a female, and reached for the switch.

" -- and disappeared earlier today without explanation. He was discovered missing after an unknown female student was seen running from his office. Police are still searching for both Prof. Turgy K. Sigger and the student. If you have any information, please call the WXOR Viewer Hot Line(R) at 387-4278 -- "

A scream interrupted the newscaster, which acoustically channeled the shattered death of a priceless chandelier. To Tom's surprise, Alona had leaped from the couch and had grabbed his arms, forcing him to look directly into her eyes. "That's him! He just disappeared when I looked the other way!" She began to sway, and Tom instinctively reached for her. "He's missing too!" she cried.

Then she swooned and fell forward perfectly into Tom's waiting arms. He helped her to the couch as his mother dashed to the kitchen to fill a glass of water.

Tom looked around, as if to see if anyone had been watching him. If anyone had seen what he had seen. If there was any way out. But there wasn't.

Tom was utterly, and helplessly, in love.

12. Cecil Gets Away "Only the fool, fixed in his folly, may think he can turn the wheel on which he turns." --T.S. Eliot

Cecil stretched and sniffed the air. Movement, but just the curtains.

He remembered that Julia had left. Probably back by dark. Or not. She had been sitting on the couch, and he had come from the bedroom and hopped onto her lap again. After stroking his fur for a while, she held up the shiny thing with the snake on the end. Cecil had batted it a few times, then ambled off to eat. Smelled like fish.

Later, Julia had thrown the fuzzy ball around the apartment, so he ran after it until he was ready for another nap. Then the phone rang. Julia left the house without petting him, although he stood near her legs and arched his back. He slowly padded his way to his pillow, which smelled like Julia, especially in the morning.

Cecil turned three times before settling down, but a sound stopped him. A footstep in the hallway. Then, nothing. Cecil waited for a moment, watching the doorway, his tail whipping softly on the bed. After another moment, he yawned.

But then another sound, a squeak. Cecil hopped down from the bed and peered from around the frame.

A man stood in the hallway. He moved something in his hand, like a twig, but Cecil didn't want to play with it. The man smelled strange. New. Odd. If he could have recognized human clothing, he would have recognized a lab coat, a clipboard, a pen. The balding man, glasses, a slightly weary look, who, after scanning the room, made a note on a yellow 12A.

The man turned and spied Cecil in the doorway, and Cecil darted into the closet.

The Lab Coat Man cursed quietly after he realized that the cat had darted into what appeared to be the world's most cluttered closet. And the cat was the last (damn) item on Forrester's list! He wondered if the Director knew of Forrester's cat phobia, how it was adding to an already full schedule. He'd have to wait for the next general meeting to bring up the matter, assuming the Director would even attend. And even by then, Forrester could have required them to round up as many house-cats in Tranquil as he could list on a 12F!