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pounded on his skin, refusing to relent, yet Alex seemed to not notice, to disregard the heat. Face turned upward toward the showerhead, as if to ask why, Alex began to relax in his own private meditation. For a long time, Alex stood there and felt the grime wash away. He began to drift into a trancelike sleep.
    Al at once, he stood at the scene of Jack’s death. Sure enough, there was Jack, lying on the snow, lifeless. Alex, in a dreamlike drift, got closer to the body. Jack was cold, as was apparent by his bluish-white complexion. Jack’s face rested on a slight drift of snow and faced Alex. As Alex drifted closer he studied Jack’s face. It looked as if Jack were asleep.

    were asleep.
    As he got even closer to his friend’s face he noticed a shift in the temperature, a sharp decrease in the frigid air’s already less than warm embrace.
    As the freezing air encircled him, a shiver found its way and crept along the length of Alex’s back. As the shiver leapt off of his tailbone, Alex noticed he drifted too close to Jack’s face. He began to retract from the body, and with one more glance at Jack everything stopped.
    The air seemed to stop swirling, its biting cold gone for a split second. The blood that dripped from Jack’s mouth stopped mid-drip and hung suspended in the air. Alex strained to get a better look at this phenomenon. And that’s when he noticed it.
    Jack’s face, more important, his eyes, snapped open. They pierced into Alex with a stern ferocity. Alex wil ed himself to retreat, to run from this misadventure. But Alex could not move, could not close his own eyes. Everything, including him, was frozen as much as the air was before time stopped.
    Alex pul ed away with al his mental strength.
    He pul ed away to keep his sanity, to hide from his friend’s piercing gaze. The unblinking eyes poured into Alex like nothing he knew. With al of his mental energy he strained.
    “Wake up Alex,” he heard. “Wake up!”
    With a start Alex awoke half-leaning, half-kneeling in his shower.
    How long have I been in here?
    The water was now running cold. Alex shivered.

    *

    Rafael woke up at dawn. He always woke up at dawn. His bed was right in line with the sun as it too woke from its slumbers. He had an alarm clock.
    Ages passed since the alarm woke him up. His daily wake
    routine
    always
    began
    with
    Rontego
    deactivating the alarm of the clock shortly after the rising sun announced the new day’s arrival.
    Rontego rol ed out of bed and grabbed a glass of water. He felt the cool liquid go down his throat and couldn’t help but enjoy it as the water refreshed his throat, parched from the hours of sleep.

    Rafael suspected that he slept with his mouth open. He never asked anyone if it were true.
    Perhaps it was too personal of a thing to know. He’d once been told that his legs kicked with a spastic twitch while he slept. He kicked the whore out of his place. He didn’t believe in mixing the personal with business.
    Never liked her anyway , he thought.
    Slamming his cup down, Rafael wiped the sleep from his eyes and wandered toward the window. He checked the street below his flat.
    “Good,” he muttered to himself.
    Nothing was below except the newspaper stand where he often picked up the most recent headlines. Every now and then he liked to read the advice columns. One time an associate of his asked why he read ‘those damned things’.
    Even though he hated being interrupted, much less by some jerk reading over his shoulder, Rafael answered “I like to see how fucked up everyone else’s lives are. It amuses me and lets me know I’m the most normal guy I’ve met.” Normal. What an interesting word. Rafael led a life that most would consider the antithesis to normal. He often contemplated what it meant to be
    ‘normal.’ To him his life was normal, structured, and routine. Sure, he did things on the fringe of society, things that other’s dubbed ‘il egal’ or even ‘cruel’. He didn’t dwel