The lamp wouldn't turn on. The bed felt heavy on the other side. A draft of warm and slobbery air was on his neck. He flicked and flicked the switch, and failing and rubbing his finger raw he leapt out of the bed and ran to the wall. The lights coming on, the room appearing all at once its sterile, diseased-yellow look. The covers tousled, pillows strewn, the light greyish-yellow stain like a teardrop on the wall behind the simple wrought-iron headboard.

Panting now, hand clasped tight on the switchplate, and wits coming back only like a smoldering fire. There was nothing to fear there in the bed. He remembered no dreams, no flickering horror in his head. But all at once he did remember. And the thought of her in her blue dress with her head turned just away burned through his chest. Hand sliding off the switchplate now, grasping at the wall-corner and slipping off, and he to the floor, burning his thighs on the carpet, panting even more heavily now, pants breaking into sobs. With the brown hair falling about her shoulders, and what was that?