Night Hunt

   "That's it, boy, lock onto his scent.  We're on the trail.  YOU HEAR THAT, KID?  WE'RE COMIN' FOR YA!" shouted Brigg as he stalked through the moonlit corn, hunting rifle in hand.  Brigg was a tall, gruff man with equally gruff stubble dotting his chin.  He wore a plaid shirt, a faded hat, and a grimly eager expression that belied vicious excitement behind a mask of experienced professionalism, as if appearing overeager would betray some sort of chivalric hunter's code.  Ahead, his demon dog led the way by sniffing out the faded trail of the young boy.

   "I'm gonna get him, I'm gonna get him good!  And soon!  I'm gonna get him good and soon!  He's mine, all mine!" said the voiceover for the demon dog.  The demon dog was just a normal, lithe brown canine sporting a fake but smart-looking white and orange beard and a plastic mask with backlit eyes.  The dog continued to follow the scent through dark fields and forests while Brigg shouted encouragements interspersed with threats toward their prey.

   Some distance away, the young boy lay huddled in a patch of cornstalks near a small clearing that bordered the forest.  He had already made an incision in his left arm and inserted a number of tubes and wires.  He was moving as quickly as he could while still being meticulous, for he knew that if he didn't find the tumor it wouldn't matter if his hunters found him or not.  He then pulled out a large, circular device from another incision in his chest and began connecting it with the wires from his arm, tugging and adjusting as he went.  It looked incredibly painful, but adrenaline and grim determination allowed the boy to operate with unnatural stoicism.

   Even so, it wasn't long before Brigg and his dog crossed the large forest clearing that bordered the corn patch, nearing the location of the boy.  With a growl, the dog signaled to his master that the boy was very close.

   "Hear that, boy?  We've almost got you!  Won't be long now!  Come on out, then!" shouted Brigg.  The boy froze and looked out to see the demon dog only yards away, the brightly lit eyeholes of his mask casting a ghastly visage.  Jack panned the camera from the boy hidden in the corn to a closeup of the dog's face, with Brigg standing in the background aiming the rifle.

   "Why don't you just come out now, save us the trouble, eh?" taunted Brigg.  The dog began to stalk around the edge of the cornfield, so Jack aimed his camera along the opposite edge for dramatic effect.  As he walked over to the cusp of a shallow hill, he saw a large pile of weapons scattered all over the ground.  Puzzled, he put down his camera and leaned down to inspect the pile.  It consisted mostly of firearms, some real and some fake, but there were healthy doses of various melee weapons and some crossbows.

   "Hey, Brigg, you better come over here!" Jack shouted to Brigg, who was still standing lower on the hill nearer the forest clearing.

   "What is it?" Brigg shouted back, annoyed.

   "You should take a look at these weapons!"

   "Eh, we already went through those, took out what we needed!  Ain't nothin' important up there!"

   "All the same, I think you better come up here!"  Jack was beginning to feel nervous.  The demon dog had stopped sniffing around and the boy raised his head slightly from his hiding place, curious about the interruption.  Brigg walked up the hill, looked at the weapons, and whistled quietly.

   "Whooo, there's more here than before," he said quietly.  "Hell."  He picked up a large axe and hefted it from hand to hand.  The fact that Brigg could not explain the appearance of the weapons sent tiny fingers of terror creeping up Jack's back.  Jack leaned down to and picked up a smaller, lightweight axe with the hope that it would reassure him.

   Brigg paused thoughtfully and scanned the darkened landscape, sniffing the cold night air as he went.  He looked back down at the pile, shrugged, and threw his axe at a large nearby tree.  It clanged ineffectually from the trunk, eliciting a small frown from Brigg and adding to Jack's growing dread.  Jack too lifted his axe and was about to throw it at a different tree when he heard a a gentle metallic shuffle, like chains being dragged across the ground, followed by silence.  The party froze, straining to catch the sound.  It happened again, slightly louder.

   From around the corner of the cornstalks, the visage of a blank, gray shell of a man stalked slowly into view.  The gray man had no expression and his tattered clothes blended seamlessly with his ashen skin.  His gait was awkward and arhythmic and he held a dull axe in his right hand.

   Jack and Brigg immediately dropped to the ground and backed up towards the clearing.  The thing wasn't moving very quickly but it was clearly headed towards them.

   "Let's go, let's go," whispered Brigg urgently.  "Come on, kid, we gotta get outta here," he said, signaling to the boy still in his hiding spot.  Jack, Brigg, the demon dog and the young boy erupted from the field and sprinted down the hill across the forest clearing.  A loud clanging from behind indicated that whatever was chasing them had increased its speed.  Jack glanced behind his shoulder in panic to see the gray man gaining on them, despite dragging four or five massively long chains from his manacled legs.

   "He's after the game!" shouted Brigg.  Just then, Jack felt himself begin to fall and a wave of terror swept over him, numbing his senses.

Tough Love

   "Have you talked to her yet?" demanded the young man forcefully.  Montano lifted his head uncertainly and looked back at him with hazy, unfocused eyes.

   "Uhhh…noo…" replied Montano sleepily.  His actions were slow and uncoordinated.

   "What? Are you – are you on – ach, come here!" he said, grabbing Montano angrily and hauling him outside into the bright school courtyard.  Jack followed quickly. Their mutual acquaintance, this blustery peer of theirs, could at times be short-tempered and impatient but he always had everyone's best interests at heart. This problem of Montano's had continued long enough and it appeared the young man was tired of waiting for action from his despondent friend.

   Outside, Montano wobbled slightly, not seeming to take in his surroundings. The young man unrolled a long hose and unleashed a spray of water aimed directly at Montano, immediately soaking him.

    "Now I’m cold…" complained Montano unhappily, though it appeared the water had succeeded in pulling him out of his stupor.

   "Why haven’t you talked to her yet? Don’t you want to?" demanded the young man, tossing the nozzle of the hose unceremoniously to the ground.

    "Yeah..." mumbled Montano

    "Well?"

   "Yeah, Montano, it wouldn't hurt to just talk," added Jack gently from the sidelines. There was a pause as Montano considered this.

    "It’s because of that bit at the end of the movie," admitted Montano sheepishly.

    "Oh, come on, that’s ridiculous!" burst the young man.

    "Yeah, that wouldn’t matter!" said Jack.

    Montano shook his head uncertainly. "I don't now..."

    "Montano, that's no reason not to talk to her," the young man said, softening his voice slightly now that progress was being made.

    "Listen, there’s a time and place for everything. You can leave the jokes for 'Von Rothbart,'" offered Jack.

   "I don’t want that," said Montano, pushing Jack away venomously.  There was another pause as he stared at the ground thoughtfully, his sopping clothes dripping beads of moisture onto the dusty earth.

   "Okay, I’ll do it," Montano finally declared.  He walked back towards the school and buzzed himself through the door, followed closely by the young man and Jack with the hose in tow.

   Jack watched Montano sit down at an empty table in the crowded cafeteria.  He smiled slightly, hopeful that things would work out.  He scanned the cafeteria for Lolra whom he'd spotted earlier; perhaps he would talk to her so as not to appear overly concerned with Montano's affairs.  She  was at another round table several spaces away.  Her face lit up with a bright smile as she noticed his approach.

   "Jack!"

   "Hi, Lolra! I am so bad at calling, just terrible. I’m really sorry…" he said as they embraced.  She dismissed the apology with a flick of her wrist.

   "Hey, I didn’t know you had a little puppy!" said Lolra excitedly as they sat down.

   "Uh, I don’t, actually…"

   "What? I thought you did! I heard you…"

   "Hmmm…I’m trying to think how you would have gotten that impression…" Jack pondered aloud.

   "I overheard you!" declared Lolra.

   "Talking about a puppy?"

   "Yeah! I was in the other room, flexing."

   "You were in the other room?"

   "Yes!"

   "Flexing?" Jack said, laughing incredulously.

   "Yes!"

   "Haha!…well...maybe you heard me talking to my mom about a puppy we were going to watch, but we don’t have it anymore," said Jack.

   "Ah," she said a little more calmly, but still with a smile.  Jack used the pause in the conversation to steal a glance at Montano.  He was talking, a little nervously it seemed to Jack, to a girl sitting across from him, though Jack couldn't see her clearly through the crowd.

   "So, how’s the war treating you, miss?" Jack said after a time, adopting what he hoped was a colonial manner.

   "Oh, fine, fine. We’ve been here and there. Of course, I didn’t have to sign up for all this, I was involved before it began."  Jack and Lolra looked out at the bird's eye view they had of the uniformed regiments marching by outside.

Cafe Melancholy

   From his heavenly vantage point, Jack looked down on the busy ninety-fourth highway. He began to fly along its path, slowly zooming closer and closer to the ground until he was level with the traffic, all the while heading northwest across the vast plains.

   He continued for some time, retracing the route that he’d once travelled. Here was the faux industrial steamworks, there the elevator that lifted vehicles from underneath the shallow water filling the maze of causeways underneath. He entered the house at the behest of its owners, amazed at all the objects that could have held, or might still hold, significant meaning.  He continued onward.

   As he neared his destination his perceptions became grounded. The car he was now driving tried and failed to make it up the muddy embankment that ran alongside the highway. He waited for the car to halt before gently nudging the gas for another try. This time he succeeded and merged back onto the busy highway. The car he’d been driving was now a long and narrow motorized skatebord with a steering column.

   After furtively glancing over his shoulder at a similarly open-aired vehicle behind him, Jack realized that its driver meant to hijack his own vehicle. Several others watched as the male closed on Jack grabbed him firmly.

   “No, don’t do it, DON’T DO IT,” shouted Jack in a panic. “If you try, I’ll just grab you and we’ll both go tumbling down the ditch, I swear, don’t even try it!” The man only smiled grimly. Jack grasped the man’s shirt and started pulling as he continued to shout. But his panic was unnecessary; the man left, and Jack continued on his way.

   He pulled into the busy cafe. The smallish business was built in such a way that made it appear both man-made and natural, like an organic extension of the forest around it. The outward facing wall was nonexistent, the shop relying instead on a series of tiered and offset natural barriers to give it an intimate yet spacious apperance. Inside, patrons sat or stood chatting or engaged in other activities. Up front, an eclectic band of musicians that Jack recognized played faintly celtic tunes on a myriad of instruments. This was why he was here.

   It was now the second year he’d attended this event, and it was proving to be just as bittersweet as the first. Most of the musicians in the band Jack felt he’d known at some point, but he could no longer remember their names. They had faded from his life, as he had theirs, through some sort of unspoken mutual apathy that Jack couldn’t help but feel responsible for. It was only at rare events like this one where these sublimated feelings were the focus of Jack’s thoughts, which was ironic because he felt vaguely that they were the primary reason he even attended, as a lame attempt to make some effort. Combined with this distress was a strong desire to play with this band, a jealousy that compelled him to prove himself, despite the clear lack of invitation. It would all be okay if he could just get up there.

   He listened for a time until the band took a break, when he meandered up the front and sat down in one of the chairs on the small stage.

   “Hey!” said a young man, turning towards Jack with a glimmer of friendly recognition.

   “Oh, hello!” replied Jack jovially. It was clear they didn’t know each other’s names.

   Jack sat onstage for a time, looking out at the other musicians milling around the cafe, some talking, some playing. His gaze lingered on a brown-haired girl bowing a simple melody on a fiddle.

   The band started playing again and Jack left the cafe in a funk. He walked down the stairs and explored the warmly-lit and ill-planned mall with a tall, amusing fellow. All the while, his thoughts lingered on the cafe. He desperately wanted to return and bid farewell to some of the musicians, but felt that nothing would come of it. His musings were interrupted by Borrora, one of the girls from the band.

   “Hey, Borrora, are you guys finished?” asked Jack.

   “Yeah, we just got done,” she replied.

   Jack hurried back to the cafe where most of the musicians were crowded around a computer screen. He once again sat on the stage, scanning the crowd for people he could say goodbye to. Spotting the brown-haired girl from behind, he hurried to get her attention.

   “Hey, I just wanted to - “ started Jack, but she turned around to reveal herself as someone else.

   Onstage, yet another girl had picked up a violin and started to play a famous baroque melody. The other musicians, though they were done with their set, began gravitating back towards the stage, drawn by the melody. Jack was overcome by a powerful urge to play.

   By the time the girl had neared the end of the slow introduction, several other musicians had joined. As she played the final cadence, Jack noticed that an important suspension was missing.

   “Hey, is that a viola?” Jack asked the girl, pointing to a stringed instrument on the floor. She nodded assent, and Jack picked up the instrument. He was delighted to find that it was actually a violin, if a slightly small one. He sat down next to the girl and joined her from the top of the piece, both of them playing the melody by heart. Everyone had joined in to form a full ensemble, and Jack’s spirits rose.

   They they finished playing the introduction for the second time and put their instruments down.

   “Hey, were you guys using music?” someone asked Jack and the girl. They both shook their heads. The questioner raised her eyebrows, impressed.

Money Problem

   Moptop and Jack handed their golf clubs back to the attendant behind the counter. 

   "That'll be thirty dollars for the metal and twenty-five for the wood," said the attendant.

   "Do you want some money for this?" Jack asked Moptop, more out of desire to maintain social graces than to part with his cash.

   "Uh...well, ye - I mean, I guess..."

   "Um..." mumbled Jack, caught off guard.  He started to fish through his wallet, even though he knew he didn't have enough to cover his share.

   "Yeah, uh...when I go with Scallia, we usually trade."

   "Well, Scallia is employed," observed Jack.

Juno Affair

   Jack picked up one of the folding stands and moved it to the pile underneath the alcove as he thought about his job.  Target-Not-Target wasn't so bad; there were small pleasures to be had and the atmosphere was spacious and open without actually being so, a comforting illusion that broke down under excessive scrutiny.  However, his interactions with one man earlier that day had filled him with a deep and utter longing to work outdoors.  Nothing else was acceptable, or indeed worthwhile.  He'd spent the remainder of his shift mired in an uncomfortable brew of hope and depression.

   A short Asian woman approached the van where Jack was working and asked a question that he couldn't quite hear.

   "Just a moment," he called out as he finished moving the last stand from the back of the van.  "Okay, what was that?"

   "My husband, is lost, Buckland Target," she said through a thick accent.

   "You need directions to the Buckland Target?" Jack clarified.

   "Yes."

   "Okay, let's go over to the computer there and look up a map."  He led the woman to a computer sitting on a desk in the corner.  She plopped down into the chair and studied the login screen.

   "I can enter number?" she asked.

   "Uh, well, no," answered Jack as he leaned in to enter his own login information.  Before he could reach the keys, the woman had typed in a string of letters and submitted them, granting her access to the site.  Puzzled, Jack noticed for the first time that she was wearing a red vest indicating that she was a Target employee.  Slightly annoyed, he returned to his work.

   After a time he noticed someone else sitting at the computer.

   "Who's over at the computer?" he asked one of the managers.

   "Oh, I hired someone to do data entry.  I was getting sick of it," she explained.

   "I could've done that..." murmured Jack, slightly incensed.

   "Oh, I didn't know you wanted to."

   "Well...I do like manual labor..." he said, thinking about his job again.

   Meanwhile, Juno had made great strides in her own personal journey.  Although initially branded a social outcast, she had overcome this obstacle and ingratiated herself with friends that appreciated her quirky, if slightly dark, personality.  The other actors in the troupe now accepted her with a firmness that she had been too afraid to ever hope for, and her relief was palpable despite her attempts to mask it.

   The troupe was bonding in the woods, garbed in full native costume, which was a misleading term in this case: the majority of the "costume" consisted of full body paint with only small scraps here and there for the sake of decency.  

   As everyone laughed at the antics of the chubby fellow who'd apparently appointed himself comedian, Juno exchanged brief eye contact with the handsome young man across the circle.  It was too early in her story for her to know, but she was destined to fall in love with him, and he with her.  As the jokes and bantering died down, Juno stood up on a log and began an inspirational speech extolling in a dryly frank and endearingly personal way the virtues of love and friendship, at least insofar as youthful experience had informed her.

   During the intervening time, Jack had gone to the ice cream parlour to engage in a little light gambling, and also to eat ice cream.  They were just finishing a session, and Jack was counting his winnings as the participants prepared to leave.

   A mousy-looking individual sidled up to Jack and mumbled, "If you stick around, there's twenty dollars in it for you."  Jack glanced sidelong at the man and nodded slightly.

   So as not to arouse suspicion among the remaining gamblers, Jack made as if to leave.  He reached the door then turned around, passing the last stragglers as they headed out.

   "It's raining.  Can't eat ice cream outside," he explained, giving his cone a conspiratorial lick for good measure.

   Once the parlour had mostly been vacated, the mousy man told Jack of several letters that evidenced confusions and conspiracies surrounding Juno's future relationship with the handsome man.  They involved a third party, a distant relative of Juno's with benign intentions that somehow would unintentionally bring minor ruin to her life.  Slightly worried, Jack followed the informer back to his apartment where they listened to an answering machine recording of someone singing a showtune about the disastrous love triangles and inevitable complications that were to come.  The mousy man cheerfully sang along with the tune, but Jack recognized it as an ill omen; somebody else knew...

Vista Italia

   "Pull the parachute," commented Jack.  The man looked darkly at him, then up to the ceiling as if to ask, where would you go?  The chunk of carrier had somehow intersected with the cooler during the renovations.  The steel hull of the former naval craft extended all along one wall, it's solid surface adorned with coded instructions, handles, and latches. 

   Jack too looked up to the ceiling of the cooler, which had become transparent glass.  Overhead, an angry mob looked over a ledge, shouting and shooting firearms across the chasm.  As the cooler slid by underneath, the man shook his head.

   "Curse them," he spat quietly.

   Their vehicle moved on, transforming as it went into a touring craft and acquiring more people.  The crowd gasped suddenly.  On Jack's side, a scenic view of the Italian countryside was being revealed as the craft drove by.  Jack and the other tourists stared in wonder. 

   The valley was enormous and bordered on all sides by tall mountains.  On the left, a monstrously colossal stone fortress, thousands of feet higher than any other building, extended all the way across one section of the valley, dwarfing all other structures.  Fantastically green trees and a myriad of plants grew from every surface, including an impressive rooftop garden.

   The city beyond the fortress was spread out in a curiously pleasing jumble of Mediterranean-style buildings that gave the appearance that they'd just fallen out of the sky in a heap and decided to make do with wherever and however they'd landed.  Further past the city were more fortresses, much smaller in scale but no less impressive, parceled into squarish plots of green farmland.  Separate, tall spires rose from ground and smaller buildings dotted the landscape farther and farther towards the mountains on the opposite side of the valley.  Many of the buildings featured a wall painted a gentle gradient of blue, suffusing the city with smears of unexpected color.  It was one of the most beautiful scenes Jack had ever seen.

   "Ohhhh...." sighed Petunia emotionally.  "I've got to get a picture of this."  She began fumbling with her camera.  "Jack!"  But Jack kept his eyes fixed on the landscape until it slid out of view.

   The craft became circular and stone, with a symmetrical ceiling above held up by squarish columns around the circumference.  It began tipping and spinning slowly, as if some giant were twirling it in his hands.  People slid around, but only Jack seemed alarmed at the possibility of someone falling out through the gaps in the walls.  One woman in particular seemed very close. 

   "I hope you don't fall, that would be bad," sang Jack.

   The woman glanced at him before jumping from the gap to meet a fiddle player on the grass.  They interacted briefly, then the woman jumped back into the craft before its upswing.

   Jack tried to remember the details of the landscape he'd just seen.  He closed his eyes and thought of the trees and buildings.  Focusing on the rooftop garden, he flew by and enjoyed the gnarled but healthy trees, the shrubs partially hiding doors to inner sanctums.  Once he'd seen almost the entire length of the garden, he set down to examine the rings around a stump, only to find that it was younger than he'd thought.  There was a girl there, perhaps a curator.

   Jack looked over to see a large, predatory cat stalking towards him through the trees.  Alarmed and annoyed at his stupidity, he tried to flank the cat with the hope that it would instead go for the girl curator.  But just as he'd gotten behind the cat, it turned and roared.  Bracing himself, he decided his only hope was to try and face down his hunter.  Just as the cat started to charge, Jack raised his arms and made aggressive spitting noises and high-pitched screams.  The cat stopped just as it reached Jack and backed up slowly, growling.  Then, without warning, it charged once more, this time undeterred by Jack's antics.  It pounced and Jack knew he was finished.

   There was a flash of light, and Jack decided he wanted another try.  He thought that maybe if he braced the butt of a long spear on the ground and angled it just right, he could catch the cat in the chest or the mouth as it pounced and its momentum would do the work for him.  He began stabbing at a soft package.  The landscape changed, and he was indoors.  He unwrapped the package to find only a strange stuffed animal.  It was a gift, and though he was annoyed that the animal was of an unknown species, probably from Japan, the gifter's voice overhead reminded him that he should appear grateful.  He hugged the stuffed animal, along with a second, in his harms and smiled.

First Rehearsal

   The room was vacant save for a few unsettled-looking youngsters timidly holding their instruments.  They had been slowly filtering in and sitting down in preparation.  The room was long and wide, with a flat ceiling and pervasive yellowish light.  Jack walked in and started unpacking his violin near the front of the room; as one of the elder players in the group, he felt it fell to him to start playing and break the ice.  He sat down on one of small chairs and started to play slowly, quietly at first, but then louder as others began warming up. 

   After a time, he played an ascending, arpeggiated string-crossing passage from a piece he had once performed, eliciting the excited attention of one of the other students.

   "Hey, that was cool!" said the student.

   "Heh, yeah," replied Jack.  "That's from a Shoobeart fantasy.  I kind of vowed to learn it so that I could pull it out during solos and stuff."  To illustrate his point, he played a lame blues lick followed by a clumsy rendition of the aforementioned passage.  The group was delighted, despite the poor performance.

   Once the full group had assembled, Narin entered and began handing out massive collections of colored file folders to each player.

   "Welcome!" she said.  "These are the training schedules and other information."  As she made her presentation, Jack looked confusedly at his files.  There were hundreds of papers strewn about the floor all around him.  As he scrambled to figure things out, he wondered briefly at how long it had taken Narin to photocopy everything.  On one paper he saw his name grouped with two novice girls in the group.  This, at least, made sense; it seemed Narin had assigned the senior players to help acclimate the newer ones.  He hoped it wasn't beyond his capacities.  Probably just ear training.

   With his attempt to understand, Jack was quickly and unintentionally making a mess of his papers.  While scrambling to reorganize them in the proper order, he noticed a sudden silence in the room.  Everyone was looking at him.

    Once Narin finished talking, Jack and his two wards left to find the training room.  It was on an upper floor, and ominously dark, lit only by a large window on the wall opposite the door.  Jack walked slowly over to the window and looked outside.  The landscape was flat and washed-out, a pale grassy field that extended towards and met up indeterminately with an equally uninspired sky.

   Without warning, several dark characters appeared from the grass and Jack heard the familiar whizz and pang of bullets echoing within their dark room.  He pulled out his black pistol and fired several return shots before retreating, pulling the girls with him.  This wasn't right; somehow they had been betrayed, and he needed to spread the word before it was too late.  He and the girls rushed downstairs, back to the rehearsal room.  Their director, Mr. Shafer, would need to hear of this.

   Jack entered the yellowed room calmly, not wanting to arouse alarm, and walked briskly towards Mr. Shafer.

   "I need to talk to you.  Something has happened," said Jack, signaling for the bearded man to follow him out.  Mr. Shafer nodded solemnly, and together they left the rehearsal space for a small room just outside the door. 

   Jack entered first and began fiddling with his pistol, which he'd tucked into the back waistline of his pants.  He felt that the safety should probably be on, just in case.  The previously black pistol was now bright green and plasticine, like a toy.  He twisted a nob near the firing pin several times, hoping it was the safety, before his attention was drawn to Mr. Shafer, who had just entered the room.

   "Mr. Shafer, we went up to the training room, but it was an ambush, there were men outside.  They fired shots, we just barely got away!"

   Mr. Shafer stared silently at Jack, smiling slightly.  To his horror, Jack saw Mr. Shafer pull out a pistol and aim it at squarely at his chest.  There was a loud bang. 

   Jack's shocked face was mirrored in the features of Mr. Shafer.  For a moment, the two figures stared, wide-eyed, at each other.  Mr. Shafer fell to the floor, and Jack looked down at his hands to see himself holding firmly his own green pistol, now smoking from the round he had instinctively unloaded into his director.

   Jack walked over the dying form of the man back into the rehearsal space.

   "Everyone, listen, please," he said, his voice shaking with grief and adrenaline.  He had loved Mr. Shafer, and he knew the whole group felt the same.  "Everyone, I have an announcement.  Mr. Shafer, he's..." Jack, on the verge of tears, struggled to keep his voice from shaking.  "Umm, Mr. Shafer, is...he's...he's dead!"

   Jack tried his best to explain the circumstances to the horrified orchestra.  "Yes, it was Narin's training program, that was her idea, but she didn't pick the room!  Mr. Shafer picked the room!  It was his plot, Narin had nothing to do with it."

   The paramedics wheeled Mr. Shafer's body into the room.  The orchestra was leaving, was gone, the paramedics took the body away.  Jack lingered, talking with a small group.  Then he too left, leaving only the janitor to clean the room, her bass in hand.