looked at the sky, or when it had last seemed so pristine. For that matter, he washaving a hard time remembering when the world looked so...colorful.
“
Randall Crane
?”
Randall tilted his head from the perfect sky and the screaming, blubbering man inthe business suit to look upon a figure looming a few feet beyond his head. He wasextraordinarily pale, dark hair falling neatly across his forehead, black pupilscomplementing the black robe he wore. He looked like a vampire.
“Are you a vampire?”
The pale man looked at him with raised eyebrows.
“Not remotely, no.”
“Oh, well, that’s good,” said Randall
.
“I don’t care much for vampires.”
“Have you encountered many?”
Randall thought about that.
“No
. None, outside of my dreams anyway, that I canrecall, exactly. I just read a book recently that made me really not like them anymore.Horrible book. Bad dialogue. Shallow characters.
”
“I see
. Absorbing though that may be to you,
I don’t particularly care
. It is timefor you to go.
”
“Time
to go where
?”
Randall attempted to shoo the babbling man and hisbusiness cards away, but to no avail. Several people joined in, attempting to do thevery same, but the man was rather hysterical and prepared to be a bit demonstrativeabout it.
“You should get up now,” said the
monotone voice above Randall.Randall frowned.
“I was thinking that a few seconds ago,
you know, but
I haven’tyet figured out why I’m down here to begin with
.
”
“Does that matter?”
“
Seems like it should, I think. Sort of help me to deal with whatever decision Ihave to make to get myself out of whatever predicament it is
that I’ve gotten myself
into this time. Sometimes I find it helps to just let life happen, and see if it worksitself out, before making any rash decisions.
”
“How very ironic.”
“
Now that I think about it, though, I
’d appreciate any help you could offer.”
“I am not here to help you,”
he said.
“Not in that context, anyhow.”
“Then why are you talking to me?” asked
Randall.
“Seems you’re doing nothing
more than keeping me from thinking.
I’d rather deal with this guy.”
HystericalBusiness Card Man was now on his knees, crying. Randall was starting to feel a touchunnerved by it all.
“This is all quite fascinating,
however irrelevant it may be. You must go. Now
.”
“Go?
Go where?” The man just stared at him, and feeling a bit odd in his place,
and distracted by the babbling man at his side, Randall reluctantly stood. He felt lightand unencumbered, and his thoughts were a bit
—
well, they were a tad minimal,actually. There seemed to be a limited number of them to deal with, which wasthoroughly abnormal, and more than a little disconcerting.
“
Well, how about I ask who you are then?
I’ll worry about my problems later.”
The man seemed to consider this for a time.
“Do y
ou understand what has
happened?” he asked finally.
Randall shrugged.
“Beats me
.
I was just…just—”
He paused, trying to rememberexactly what it was that he had been doing.
“Well, I was just doing something
.
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