Now I looked like a bloodshot porcupine. Big improvement.

The only thing on my person that didn’t look slimy was the brand-new silver choker necklace my mother’d given me just before she died. A Celtic cross pendant sat in the hollow of my throat. I wasn’t used to jewelry, and now that I’d been reminded it was there, it felt mildly horrible, like someone was gently pushing his thumb against the delicate flesh. I shuddered and put my contacts back in before weaving my way back down the aisles to my seat. The flight attendants avoided me. I couldn’t blame them.

I rested my forehead on a grease spot I’d left on the window earlier. The airlines, I thought, must have custodians who clean the windows, or there’d be an inches-thick layer of goo on them from people like me.

That thought was proof positive that I shouldn’t be allowed to stay up for more than eighteen hours at a time. I have a bad habit of following every thought to its miserable, pathetic little end when I’m tired. I don’t mean to. It’s just that my brain and my tongue get unhinged. Though some of my less charitable acquaintances would say this condition didn’t require sleep deprivation.

The plane had been descending for a while now, and I squinted at my heavy black wristwatch. The bright orange button for changing the time had become permanently depressed in Moscow, or maybe Venice. Probably Moscow; I’d found Moscow depressing, and saw no reason why the watch shouldn’t. It claimed it was 5:50 p.m. which meant it was almost seven in the morning. I frowned out the window, trying to find the horizon. The sky wasn’t turning gray yet, not flying into Seattle three days after New Year’s. I blinked at the darkness, trying to unglue my contacts again.

My eyes teared up and I spent a few minutes with my hands over them, hoping perversely that I didn’t blink the contacts out.