"I am attempting to make a friend." Without letting him interrupt further, I turned back to the woman. "Talk to me. Talk to me about… about this interesting thing you saw."

"There was an alien," the woman replied with grumpy ill will. "A big white thing — like some animals, but bigger than a buffalo and it didn’t have a head."

"Then where did it put its ears?" I asked.

"It didn’t have ears. Or eyes or a nose or a mouth. Because it didn’t have a fucking head. Have you heard a word I’m saying?"

"I am listening most attentively. This headless beast picked you up to clear a path to me?"

"It didn’t touch us," the woman answered, "but we moved anyway. Everybody. We floated off the floor and out to the sides. Then the creature took away your body and when it brought you back, you were alive again."

"But I was always alive. I am not so weak as to the from a little tumble."

"You didn’t look alive," the woman said. "But you got taken away and when you came back…"

Her voice faded again. I gave her another smack against the wall. "Wake up! Is it not interesting that I appeared dead but then was alive? Do you not wish to find this headless beast and learn the reasons for its actions? I am clearly enmeshed in Portentous Events and if you accompany me, we shall both… wake up! Wake up! Wake up!"

I slapped her hard. She did not react. I lifted my hand to slap her again, but Uclod seized my wrist.

"Enough, missy," he said. "You’ve knocked her out cold."

I looked at the woman before me. She was beginning to slump to the floor — but not because I had battered her unconscious. I had not hit her hard enough to cause injury; in fact, I had not hit her hard enough to keep her awake.

And through all this, none of the others within hearing had opened an eye to watch. Too lost to care. The woman had been the most awake of them all; but she had not been awake enough.