Then, without his will, breath came again. His mind broke delirium's surface. When his eyes reopened, the suite around him seemed intensely surreal. Crawling walls of white stucco, swirling white stucco ceiling, thick wormy carpet of chemical aqua blue. Bulbous pottery lamps squatted unlit on elaborate wicker tables. The chest of drawers, and the bureau, the wooden bedframe were all marked with the same creepy conspiracy of aqua-blue octagons. ... Iron-hinged wooden shutters guarded the putty-sealed windows. A dying tropical houseplant, the gaunt rubber-leafed monster that had become his most faithful companion here, stood in its terra-cotta pot, gently poisoned by the constant darkness, and the medicated vaporous damp....

A sharp buzz sounded alongside his bed. Alex twisted his matted head on the pillow. The machine buzzed again. Then, yet again.

Alex realized with vague surprise that the machine was a telephone. He had never received any calls on the telephone in his suite. He did not even know that he had one. The elderly, humble machine had been sitting there among its fellow machines, much overshadowed.

Alex examined the p hone's antique, poorly designed push-button interface or a long groggy moment. The phone buzzed again, insistently. He dropped the inhaler mask and leaned across the bed, with a twist, and a rustle, and a pop, and a groan. He pressed the tiny button denominated ESPKR.

"Hola," he puffed. His gummy larynx crackled and shrieked, bringing sudden tears to his eyes.

"~Quien es?" the phone replied.

"Nobody," Alex rasped in English. "Get lost." He wiped at one eye and glared at the phone. He-had no idea how to hang up.

"Alex!" the p hone said in English. "Is that you?"