Elisabeth was drenched in fear. She had not been out of the house that day, not since she had returned home from Edward’s apartment that morning. She had not accomplished anything that day—had not cleaned the house or made herself lunch or lit the candles when the sky began to grow dark. The ash falling out of the sky had seeped into her small room, had soaked into her skin as she had sat unmoving, barely conscious of her surroundings. Was Edward awake? She wondered. Would he be playing tonight?

She bit down on her nail in nervousness. All day she had waited for the monsters to drag her away, to whip her and force her to work in the mines. Were they looking for her? Had they even noticed she was gone? Elisabeth remembered the exterminations, the way the monsters had taken Adam from her as he screamed. What have happened to him after that? She thought of it often, Adam transformed into a giant piece of machinery, working day after day with rest, for the rest of his life, the subject to torture and mutilations. The guinea pig for all kinds of horrendous experimentation. Or had they simply killed him quickly and used his life energy to power their machines? Elisabeth was startled from the grim thoughts by a soft knock at her door.

The ash was still falling down around him as he stood on her front step waiting patiently for her to answer, if she was even there at all. The ash was soft but the thoughts that it brought to his mind were not. The ash was from the mines, the underground tunnels where all whom the monsters had enslaved to their drums beat the earth with their shovels and picks. He knew of the fires that burned in the earth to turn the steel into molten liquid, used to shape beams and poles, columns, and sheets of buildings. He also knew the monsters burned humans who had become less than exemplary in those fires. The apathy he had lived in for so long had made him forget all the stories of the tunnels Irene had shared with him. The piano had consumed him. No, he thought. The monsters had made the sweet voice of his piano consume him.

He felt the dull pounding in his head typical of this time of night. He knew now that it was the machines urging him to sit and play, to make the piano sing them to sleep, lull away the cares of the day. But this night, Edward was determined not to. He had no love for the monsters, the ones who had stolen away his family, his home ,his country. They had stolen Irene. They had taken away someone from Elizabeth as well. He had sensed it in her that morning when she stood before him, the soft gray of the morning shining through his windows. The soft gray of the evening was burning his soul with panick. He knocked again at her door fervently, desperately, harder than before. Maybe they had taken her away too. Maybe they knew he was standing outside her door.

Edward’s panic intensified. In his fear he heard himself yell for Elizabeth. He beat on the door with his fist, calling her, his patience gone, his mind reeling with the thoughts of what they would do to him if he did not hide from their greasy eyes.

“Elisabeth!” he called again

And by some miracle she opened the door and, without a word, pulled him inside

“Don’t speak,” Elisabeth whispered in the dark. The apartment was dark. The waning sun gave no light to the small room by the door. “I’ve waited for them,” she continued. “All day, I sat in the heat and the silence waiting for them to take me away. They didn’t come.” She drew in her breath unsteadily and gasped as she exhaled. Her hands found their way to his chest and she spread her palms over his bare skin. He was still in his underwear. He smelled like cigarettes, the tar and poison hung heavy on his lips as she pressed her face closer to him, whispering lower out of fear. “I don’t think they know.”

“If they haven’t realized your betrayal, they will surely realize mine,” he said anxiously.

“What?” she asked in a hush, pressing herself closer to his body. Ash was smeared on his arms and back his eyes were glossed with terror.

But he had not the heart to tell her his weary story. Instead, he put an arm around her waist drawing her closer allowing her femininity to soothe away his fears. The pounding in his brain subsided. Elisabeth lay her head lightly against him as Edward wrapped her in his other arm. They waited, swaying in the front room, dark and hot, sweat running down both of their faces. Would the monsters come? What would they do to them when they found them entangled such as this? It was a crime in their eyes, for an embrace could lead to organic sex, and that led to unregistered human young, who were not bred for top quality work in the tunnels.

Did Edward care anymore? Did Elisabeth? He touched the woman’s face and moved to kiss her as he had once kissed Irene. If the monsters found them together they would surely be killed and that was better than living in fear, wasn’t it? Surely it was. A fire of defiance burned suddenly in Edward and he kissed Elisabeth as if he had never kissed anyone else in his life. He moved with her down the hallway, took her into the dark bedroom. She stretched out on the bed, letting him lay down beside her, touch her, move with her. He felt her in his soul, in his brain, as he pushed hard against her in the dark. They were one, two lost pieces fit together. It did not matter what the monsters did to them once they realized what had happened this night.

He lay in a trance, Elisabeth curled beside him, her head resting gently in the crook of his armpit. His desire was sated, and the weariness was overcoming him. He glanced longingly at the woman next to him, and rubbed her head, feeling the smooth length of her hair. She had met his every move, as if she were an extension of him. Elisabeth pressed against him in her sleep. She trailed her hand over him, lightly rubbing over his chest and down his stomach. He wondered if the monsters knew they were together. He wondered if they cared. He closed his eyes.

Edward was troubled. In his mind, he saw the great waters of the ocean, stretched out before him, an expanse of salt and death. He saw the swallowed beach, the gray morning mist mixing with the ash as the two fell out of the sky, dancing in dreary patterns before they lay down to die on the earth. It was that day again. He dreamed of it often, always the same, ending the same miserable way every time he slept with it in his mind.

That morning as the ash fell down and the rain came from the sky, Irene had left him alone in the apartment. There was no argument between them and he had not tired to stop her from going. There were times when he wished he had said something to her. Maybe then she would have stayed. But the monsters had called her, and who in all the world could resist their call?

She had said to him as she awoke that day, “I must leave you. I am never coming back.”

He swallowed hard, allowing her words to soak into his soul. “But I need you here with me, Irene.”

“My name is not Irene,” she replied stubbornly. There had been real tear in her eyes that day. Real human tears. Edward had not seen them since his mother had been exterminated, and then they had been his own.

He touched her face lovingly, in a vain hope to dissuade her from her decision. She stiffened under his fingertips, shuddered as he pressed his whole hand to her cheek. He knew she was too far from his reach. The monsters had called her. She was never coming back. So, he kissed her, softly and slowly, passionately, with all the love he had for her. Her lips were smoother under his, yet they quivered with hesitancy. She loved him not as she once had, for now she loved the monsters and their drums more.

He let her go out the door that morning, allowing her to walk right out of his life, down into the tunnels where the hum and the clank and the drone ever ceased. Edward was empty, consumed with an ache so great that he was not sure he could live under its weight. His only reason to live had walked out on him that morning, off into the mix of dust and mist falling from the sky, dancing drearily before it died on the earth. Irene had left him alone. Taking his hat, he made his way down to the beach.

It was in his dreams that he saw this beach now, the sea swelling up like a bee sting. The beach had been swallowed by the raging ocean that year, for the rain had come and poured out its sorrow for the world onto the coast. It was there, on that morning after Irene had walked away, that Edward walked out to sea.

The wind was high, moaning in the gray of the early morning as if the ghosts were abroad. Edward sat in the tide, inviting the ocean to wash him away, carry him far from the city and all the grief that had stricken him there. His mother was gone, Irene was gone, his county, his race all but gone and he wished with every atom of his structure that the roaring sea would swallow him the way it had swallowed the beach that year. It nearly did.

Edward was caught in the undertow, and at the moment, terror streaked through him. But he was drug under and held down by the water, its strong arms grasping his limbs with fists of iron. He flailed his arms and legs forcefully, desperately, attempting to break free of the confining prison that held him under the waves. His lungs burned for air. Edward thought of Irene, scrambling to live in case she changed her mind. If he died, she would have nothing to come back to if she escaped, if the monsters left, if the last humans won and drove them back into the far reaches of the universe from whence they had come. He needed to live for hope of victory to be thrive.

Miraculously, (and indeed it was a miracle), a hand pulled Edward from the water back into the life-giving air. He was lifted out of the sea and dropped into an open over-large metal can. He knew instantly a monster had captured him; one of the cleaning machines had found him flailing about in the water and deposited him into a can of trash like all the garbage found in the sea. He was alive! But now he had the problem of how to escape. A few minutes more and he would suffocate, for the great lid had already been snapped in place, sealing him into a metallic, lightless prison.

Edward lay in a daze, hours later, on his back in the center of a clean white table. He looked up into a shining light, so bright it stung his eyes with tears. Above his head, encircling, floating just inches from his face were the metal hands of the monsters, their claws waving dangerously, threatening to slice his flesh. The scene was lurid. The monsters seemed to notice every flinch he made, every fear burning in his brain. They knew his terror, were thriving off it. Edward heard one of them speaking, its metal voice pinging like a pinball inside his head.

“Don’t be afraid. We will not harm you friend,” it breathed, close to his face, its eyes wet with grease and oil. The face of the monster was smooth, shining like the sun underneath the lights. Its teeth clanged together, and Edward heard the whirring of its heartbeats inside its aluminum skin. The other monsters crowded around, drawing breaths of awe and wonder. He heard the ping of their voices but could not discern any words they spoke.

“You have something we need, Edward,” the monster hovering over his face said. This was the same monster who had spoken to Edward first. It was apparent that was the appointed leader of whatever operation they were carrying out. “Edward, tell us of the black wooden box with white teeth that sits silent in your living room.”

He was confused. The monster had used his human name. He didn’t know what to make of any of this. The question rolled threw him. “That is my great grandmother’s piano. I haven’t played it since I was small. Mother made me play it.”

“We want you to play it,” the greasy eyed animated hunk of metal creaked in its high pinging voice.

“What do you mean?” Edward asked, bewildered.

“The song that the box sings when you rest your hands in its mouth lulls our weary bodies. Please, will you make it sing for us?”

“I’m not sure I remember how…” Edward started to say, but he was rudely interrupted by a shrill whine from the monsters above him.

“You will make the box sing, or else we will send you to the mines, Edward,” the lead monster’s voice clanged in his ears. “You do not have a choice. We must hear the song of the box tonight, every night. Forever.”

The clanging, the pinging in his brain continued until he was scooped up into the hands of the greasy, oily-eyed conqueror. “Go Edward, and you may keep your name.”

And Edward found himself wandering alone beside the swollen ocean, the beach swallowed by the water, the mist and dust were still falling from the sky, and the sun was setting on the horizon. Where had he been? Why did he have this urge to play this great grandmother’s piano after all the years it had sat neglected in his living room? Edward did not know how the day had passed so quickly, but he knew he had to return home before the sun set, to make music.

When Edward awoke from the imagines of his past, the images of his accidental encounter with the machines who had enslaved him, the sun hung low. He rolled out of the bed, his head pounding with the whir of machines, mechanical voices spitting phrases at him in their pinging language. He was troubled. The accident was still fresh in his thoughts. He lit a cigarette, sucked on the end of it as if his life depended on it and wiped the sweat off his brow. He was not sure if he should sit at the piano this night. He realized now that he was just as brainwashed as the rest of humanity.

She looked out her window into the morning dust. She looked out the window every morning to watch the dust fall from the sky, silently, eerily, before she started her day. And every morning before she reported to the tunnels for work, she stopped outside Edward’s door, and pondered over his manner. He was a talented musician, and he was consumed with playing his piano. It seemed that it had kept him alive after the accident, that it was his one reason for continuing to live after what happened. She wondered why he only played when no one else could listen.

Well, she had listened many times. At dusk when she came home from the tunnels, she longed for the clock to tick away the hours until he sat down at the keys. She listened freely, she listened with longing in her heart to see the man who let an instrument sing the words his soul could not say. It was a rare gift to have talent such as his. Why did he hide it?

Every morning after she wondered this, she passed on, leaving him to sleep while she toiled for the monsters. They had taken her mind and her body, and most of her soul from her—except for this small part of her that made her curious about Edward. Maybe she was the only one left who wondered about Edward. In the beginning it had not been so. After the monsters had exterminated the ones who would not be useful, renamed people and put them to work, everyone had wondered why Edward stayed alone, played at night, loved the music as much as he did. But everyone soon had given their lives away to the ones who now ruled them, and in time, they no longer wondered. They had forgotten how.

She however, still held on to a bit of her humanity. She had not been turned into a machine by the monsters. She was not enslaved to their drums and their calls and their meaningless names, for she still had a human name. They had missed her somehow, on the day they had come and taken away the world. Her name was still Elisabeth.

Maybe her name was the reason why she still wondered. Maybe the reason she could stand in front of Edward’s door every morning and think of him, the strange man she had never met, was because she wasn’t part of their society. She worked under the monsters and reported for assignment, but they had no record of her existence at all. They had not changed her name, and they did not know that she was not one of them.

When she realized that, as she was standing before Edwards’ door that morning, the ash falling like rain around her, she decided that there was no point in continuing her life as if she was under their control. For the first time, she did not pass by the door and go to the tunnels where the monsters waited with their drums. She turned the knob on Edward’s door, hoping, praying that it would be unlocked. And it was.

Slowly, she entered the hot dark of the small apartment, much like her own. Same gray walls, same dampness, same dreariness resting on her spirit as she walked across the floor. It groaned under her weight, creaking and shifting as she continued along a path to the back bedroom. She assumed it Edward’s room. Her heart raced as she turned the knob. She heard the breathing coming from behind the thin wooden door.

Elisabeth stopped. Afraid to go on, she dropped her hand from the knob, and as silently as she could made her way back to the front of the apartment. She waited by the front door, her hand on the knob, her heart in her throat. I should leave, she thought. I should go to the tunnels and do what I do every day. There isn’t any reason why this should be different. It can be just like any other day.

 She considered her own erratic thought. No, it cant. I’ve already changed on thing that happens everyd ay. I’m here and I’ve never been here before. That makes today different. It isn’t a regular day. I came in here to see Edward, and I should go back and see Edward, even if he does not see me.

Slowly, she took the hallway back to the bedroom where he lay asleep. The door was not fully shut as it had been before. She frowned in confusion. As she pushed the door open her eyes fell on an empty bed and then a raised window shade. The covers were rumpled, the carpet was stained, and Edward was nowhere to be seen.

“Who are you?” she heard a man say behind her.

She screamed and flipped around to face a man with a bit of beard on his chin, deep brown eyes, handsome but scabby and scrubby. There was pain in his face, it wore him away, making him seem tired and lonely.

“Are you Edward?” Elisabeth asked softly.

“Yes. Who are you?” he asked again.

“I’m Elisabeth, your neighbor. I came to see you,” she stammered.

“No one comes to see me. No one knows me.” He was agitated with her, and yet she detected that he was also flattered by her presence. She knew she was lovely, and she could see his appraisal of her in his eyes. They trailed slowly over her features, over her firm body, flowing black hair falling around her face, hot green eyes set into her skull, skin smooth and pale like milk.

He was surprised that anyone had come to see him. Even more surprised that this woman had lived next to him and he had never noticed her before. “Do I know you?” he asked.

“I don’t know you. I just live in the next apartment. I hear you play every night. I wanted to say hello.”

“What’s your name?” he asked, even though she had already told him.

“Elisabeth,” she repeated.

Her name sounded as a bell, ringing clean and crisp in the morning breeze. It called the weariness out of him, filled him with a great passion and warmth. “Elisabeth,” he echoed her. “They would’ve changed your name to Fictishmafec.” He smiled, recalling the girl who was now enslaved to the monsters and their drums. Her name had been the same as this woman’s. “Why were you allowed to keep you name?”

“I don’t know. I was missed. Skipped. They did not look at me and rename me. I was allowed to go on as who I always was.” She bit her lip and Edward realized that she was nervous. Of what? Of him? Certainly not. He of all people was not the one to be feared. He was the only one in the world that was like her, an unnamed citizen-slave. Why had he been allowed to keep his name? He wondered about that sometimes, but it didn’t seem to matter much. He wondered what it would be like to hold this woman, to touch her, to kiss her, to love her in the that was not common anymore. The machines had taken natural love away. They had taken Irene away. Maybe this was the woman could help him escape the torment of the drums in the deep places of the world where the monsters bred.

Elizabeth, though he did not know, was thinking the same thing. They were not the monster’s slaves. They were outside the society of monsters, they had been skipped. Missed and passed over. And now that they had found each other, they would no longer feel like outcasts. They could be like a braided cord. “All this time, you were right under my nose,” she said quietly. “Just next door.”

True compassion lit in her eyes as she gazed at him. Edward hadn’t seen that look in anyone’s eyes for more years that he could count. He was overwhelmed with a longing he had not experienced since the accident. He wanted to laugh and cry and hold her and push her away all in the same instant. He had finally found something that he needed, though it did not have a name, and he was terrified of losing it before he ever touched it. Was it love? It could have been, although this was unlike any love he had ever known. As a child he had loved his mother, but it had not felt like this. As a young man he had loved Irene, but never had it felt like this. This feeling wrenched his guts, twisted his heart, caused his brain to beat in time with this pulse. He trembled, as his soul seemed to mesh with Elisabeth’s though he dared not to touch her or look into her hot green eyes.

“Do you have to leave now?” Edward asked her after a long silence.

“No. I can stay forever,” she whispered. She nearly cringed at the words. Forever would not be long if they were discovered.

“What about the monsters? Won’t they know that you aren’t in the tunnels?”

“I have no name to them. I don’t exist. I never have to work in the tunnels again.” She was nervous. Edwards was biting his nail and popping his knuckles, smoothing his hair all because he didn’t know what else to do. She could tell he was worrying about something, remembering a time he did not want to remember. Or anticipating something horrible. She fed off his energy, feeling anxiety pressing against her chest.

In reality, Edward was only fidgeting out of nervousness. He had not seen a woman since Irene had left, since the accident had occurred. Irene had loved him until the very end, he was sure, and why she had chosen that day to go was still a mystery. Irene was what he had always called, her, but it was not her name. The monsters had renamed her Wegilina. He had never called her that. She had left because the monster’s drums were more important in her mind that their love. She had left that day, after the dust had fallen as it does every morning. It was the day the accident had happened.

“Edward?” Elisabeth responded to his concerned expression. “Have I said something wrong?”

He swallowed hard, expecting to rid himself of the cold lump in his throat. “No. I was only remembering.”

“Remembering what?
“Doesn’t matter anymore. She’s gone.”

Elisabeth suspected she knew what was tearing him apart. He had loved before the monsters had taken that away from him. Surely there were many secrets in his soul that he could not share. There were no longer the right words to express such agony. All but a few had forgotten the language used to express one’s innermost feeling, one’s joys and pains. Even if Edward could say the right words, Elisabeth knew she would not be able to understand. She knew the pain her felt, though, for it was also in heart. Adam had been slaughtered in the exterminations. It had been long since she had thought of him. Her eyes grew moist as tears formed, rolled slowly down her face. Edward was surprised, when he looked at her again. Can she read my heart? He thought. I didn’t think anyone could anymore.

“Why cry, Elisabeth? It’s not wise.” He smiled at her reassuringly. Edward let out a sigh, a yawn and rubbed his tired, burning eyes. Elisabeth took note of it and prepared herself to leave the apartment.

“Rest. I did not intend to keep you,” she said politely as she moved way.

“Will I see you again?” Edward asked just as she walked past.

She turned, smiling brightly “Of course you will.” But in truth, she was not so sure of her words. Worry arose in her and bit at her brain like a mad dog. Will the monsters find me? Will they exterminate me the way they exterminated Adam? She left the hot dark of Edward’s hallway, left him standing in his underwear and returned to her own dwelling on the other side of his wall.

The house was hot, the air stifling and smokey from the candles that burned in every room. A draft blew up from under the door to the bathroom across the hall. He’d left the window open. He sat silently at the piano, feet bare, wearing only his underwear, smoking a cigarette. He waited for the clock to strike. He sat here every night waiting for the clock to strike. And as soon as the chimes rang, he played. He would play until the sun peered into his window the next morning.

It hadn’t always been like this. There were times he was sure that he had been normal—not nocturnal—and lived a normal life, but there had been an accident, and now, this was his life. Sitting up all night, every night, playing piano without pause. In fact, he vaguely remembered a time when he didn’t want to play piano at all, when his mother forced him to sit and practice until his back hurt from keeping proper posture. There had been days like that, but he wasn’t sure if they had been real, or if he had only imagined them, scenes taken from his nightmares.

He tapped his cigarette ashes off into the little glass tray sitting on the table beside him. He looked at the clock. In a few minutes, it would be time. The heat from the fires burning around his small apartment had made him unbelievably sweaty, but he wouldn’t unlight the candles until he went to sleep. He would not go to sleep until he saw the sun. The sun would not come until he had played the piano all night. He could not play until the clock chimed.

Popping his toes, he stretched. There was a dull pounding in his brain. It came to him every night just as the clock was about to chime. The clock would strike, he would go into a trance and pay the notes that were ingrained into him. All the old masters, like Beethoven and Mozart and the new writers like Gethben and Sultchuz, even musical pieces he has composed himself, would flow out of him, playing on the keys, lulling the neighbors into dreams. When he played, he was free from the life here in the city. He was unchained by his urban habitation. He wandered through ancient forests and over seas, under mountains beneath a blanket of bright stars.

It was almost time. He put out his cigarette and prepared to play as he watched the clock’s hands come ever, ever closer to 9. He felt his hands begin to sweat as he rested his fingers on the ivory keys. Pianos keys were rarely made from ivory anymore. Actually, no pianos keys were made from real ivory. The elephant had died out long before he was born and the only ivory available now was produced in a lab. It was expensive, and companies that produced pianos—which, in fact, was only one company—used pristine, clinically white plastic instead. But he had received this piano from his great grandmother, who had died shortly after the turn of the century. It was old, older than his great-grandmother. After the accident, he had become obsessed with restoring it to its proper glory. He was proud to know that his piano’s keys were real ivory, from a long dead elephant that he had never seen.

The clock struck suddenly. As it chimed, he banged on the keys, then lightly played a much softer melody, and then a sad song, and then a ballad of spring. He felt the pounding in his head rest as he tinkered away at the piano.

The neighbors in their beds heard not a note at all, and those who were up late for a snack listened to the music respectfully. They had become accustomed to his nighttime playing, and frankly, it no longer bothered most of them. They all knew what had happened to poor Edward years ago when the waters had risen and the beach had been swallowed. He hadn’t been right since it happened. So, they let him sit in solitude and play his great-grandmother’s piano, with all the candles turned on in the middle of the night. As long as Edward didn’t knock over those candles and set the whole complex on fire, no one cared to bother him about his nocturnal preoccupation. After all, what would you expect from a man named after his mother’s mother’s great grandfather’s great uncle? With a name like Edward, who would be a normal human being?  

Of course, before the war everyone had been named strange old names like Edward. The mayor’s name had been Bill, the pastor had been called Peter, the midwife’s name was Ruth. Edward’s neighbors had all had names like Susan and Lucy and Edmond. Edward’s wife has been named Irene. But no one would remember this once they were gone. There were no records of the names peoples had been called before the war. In fact, there was no record of the war. The war was only remembered by Edward, who now lived alone because of the accident.

It had been a freak accident, indeed. Edward often thought of it when he was alone, all the candles burning as he played his piano. When he played, and it was dark, and the world was asleep, there was nothing else to think of, since the accident was the reason he played. Before that day, his great-grandmother’s piano had sat untouched in the living room, covered in a thin layer of dust. He glanced at it once in a while, but never did he sit down at the bench and play the way he played now. If his mother could only see him! How proud she would be with his devotion. But his mother had passed during the war, before the accident. Her name had been Maria. Who knows what name the monsters would have given her, had she not died during their exterminations. Edward had known another Maria as well. She lived units over in his complex, but her name was now Gerara. In the monsters’ language it was a praise of beauty. But it was in no way as beautiful a name as Maria.

Edward remembered his mother, her gentle touch, her soft voice, her curling dark hair. Her face was always lean, her lips always pouty, and her eyes always thoughtful. During the war, they were seldom dry. She had cried nearly every night over the death of Edward’s father. Although he had perished years and years before in a country called Afghanistan, the war with the monsters reminded her of the war with the Afghans. As far as he knew, that country—as well as his own, the United States of America—had been broken apart and redivided into sections by the monsters.

He rarely thought of the monsters. There was no point. They had come, they had conquered the world through mass extermination, and now they ruled from their centralized brain located deep underground, where it was warm. The monsters thought the surface was unbearably cold. No human could go down into the earth, towards the core, where their city grew, for the heat would have burned them to ash. Despite their separation, the monsters still held humans in their grasp. For the most part, they looked after their well-being and he was not oppressed, so why would he complain?

               In fact, it was the monsters who had led him to be what he was now. The monsters had made him into the drone that sat and played the piano every night until the sun rose over the horizon. Edward secretly admired the monsters, although he never had the courage to admit it aloud. Edward was the product of their experiments, a being that had been reformed into a worker for the good of the monsters. The music he played soothed their thoughts and worries. The notes vibrated down into the hive where they lived, while they relaxed after a long day of building. What they were building, no one ever knew, and where they were getting the supplies, no one dared to guess—thieving them from the humans was probably the answer. They could be heard in the daytime clanking and cracking and rumbling in the deep. When the night fell, they became strangely quiet as they became drunk from the music Edward played on his piano miles and miles above their heads.

Sweat dripped from his brow and he paused momentarily to wipe it away. The sky was progressively becoming lighter, a soft gray of morning that had come to mean it was time to rest. Slowly, he finished his musical selection and rose from the bench. He was drenched with sweat, tired with aches in his hands and legs. The fatigue penetrated to his bones. Around his apartment he went, blowing out the candles he had lit to set him in the right mood. He wiped his face with the towel hanging on the doorknob of his bedroom, pushed open the door and collapsed onto the bed, soft and wonderful under his body. Sleep came, uninterrupted by dreams.