I spend three days in a haze.

Day and night. Immersed in my story.

It's a very comfortable haze. Something I still remember, but I wasn't allowed to enter into for a long time. Too long, as it turns out. Survival mode and creative haze are not compatible. Now it swallows me whole.

This time I have nothing to worry about. My colleagues take care of all my duties. Liam of my cases. Ollie of my child. Mr. Warren of my feeding, though I hardly notice it.

I'm aware of a very limited range of circumstances. The change of day and night. Ben hugging me when Ollie brings him to the office after school. Mr. Warren driving us home later, when I'm ready to take a pause. Not much else.

When the book is finished, it feels like waking up from a dream. I'm at work, and it's 11 AM. I come to my senses very slowly. Desk. Monitor. Phones. Colleagues. A normal day in the office. With a slight twist.

I stare at the last sentence written, and I know the text is ready to be abandoned for a while. It fills me with the usual unadulterated euphoria.

I allow myself a few minutes to celebrate inside my head. Then, as usual, I feel the urge to share my excitement. To let the whole world know that a new story was born.

"It's finished," I utter, not very loudly, and to no one in particular.

"Is it finished?" Ollie shrieks, on my left, raising her hands to the air.

"Finished?" Liam repeats, with an unmistakable amount of relief in his voice.

"Thank God!" Bill grunts, sounding seriously grateful.

"It was time," Thelma sighs. "You were kinda funny, though."

"I've never laughed so much at work," Christy agrees.

"Congrats, I guess," Andy says, chewing on the end of a pen. "I want a special mention in the dedications, though. Those questions about my drug addiction were fucking harsh."

I stare at him suspiciously.

"Did I ask you questions about your... what?"

"Exactly." He pouts. "I've been clean for eight years now. Yet you somehow seemed to guess it."

"I'm sorry," I apologize, feeling a sudden surge of panic.

"Oh, don't worry." He shrugs. "Most of the time you weren't rude like that. You had the funniest conversations with us. Without remembering a word two minutes later."

"Ouch." I grimace. "Is it supposed to make me feel better?"

"Yeah." Ollie pats my shoulder. "When you were stuck, or too tired to write on, you spent your time wandering around, from desk to desk, interviewing us. It was hilarious."

"Why didn't you snap me out of it?" I ask her, making it sound more like a demand than a question.

"We had no reason for it. You were cute. And, you know, it's not that easy to wake you up when you're too deep in your thoughts. Not very pleasant either. I tried it once, and you looked at me as if I attempted to murder you. You know, with an ice-cold "who are you and what are you doing in my house" kind of stare."

"Besides," Bill says grinning, "it wasn't our problem. You were frequenting Mark the most. You spent hours talking to him."

I hear myself groan. Not in a very ladylike way, sounding more like a wounded animal.

"So I behaved like the lunatic I am. Great."

"Hey, there was no harm made." Bill laughs. "You didn't disturb him. When he had something urgent to do, and told you so, you left without attacking."

"Very funny," I sigh. "I'm a blabbering idiot. And now I don't even remember it."

"It might be better this way. It wasn't just conversations, you know."

My heart skips a beat hearing it. But Bill goes on without the slightest hint of sympathy.

"Last day you asked him if you could touch his hair."

"You're so cruel, Bill," I blurt out. "I just came out of my haze. I'm not ready to face the facts yet."

"If I was cruel, I'd have stopped for a long pause before naming his hair." He laughs. "And don't worry. He simply allowed you to do it."

I palm my face. I'd like to disappear and materialize on the opposite face of the planet. Far enough to never find my way back here.

"Hey, don't fret," Bill goes on, mocking me mercilessly. "You liked it then. You said it was woolly."

"I certainly didn't say that," I protest, feeling mortified.

"You did. But, being the polite lady you are, you also asked him if it was racist to call it that."

"And?" I sigh, closing my eyes. "What did he say?"

"I didn't hear it." Bill shrugs. "I was laughing too loud."

I groan again. I take a quick glance in the direction of Mr. Warren's office. He's in there, writing something.

It seems inevitable to face him. Unless I seriously learn to teleport to the farthest place possible from here. Which seems a welcoming option at the moment, and not much scarier either, than to go in there voluntarily, to discuss how I've been harassing him in the last few days.

I enter his office with the deepest sigh my lungs allow me.

"Hey," he greets me cordially. "You look sober. Almost. Is the magnum opus finished?"

"Yes." I smile sheepishly. "Thank you for the opportunity. And I apologize for my inappropriate behavior during... you know."

"You did nothing wrong."

"Yeah. I know. I was funny. In a lunatic way. Do you think I'm a lunatic, by the way?"

"Not at all." He furrows his brow. "You were just deep in your inner world. You have one, at least."

I stare at him. He doesn't make it any easier.

"Okay," I sigh, "I'm sorry if I did anything out of line here. My usual judgment doesn't seem to work when I'm far out."

"Yeah, that's the best part of it." He grins. "But don't worry. You were totally decent."

"Yeah. Totally. That's not what Bill told me."

"He likes to exaggerate. You were asking me lots of questions, and that's it."

"And did you... answer them?" I ask, sounding perplexed.

"Yeah." He nods. "It was obvious you wouldn't remember any of it later, so I could tell you absolutely anything. It was refreshing. Oh, and you also had great insight on my childhood, and how it made me the asshole I am today. It was quite enlightening. You're really good at vivisecting people. Your analytical skills are exceptional. I already knew it, but I think you outdid yourself this time."

I close my eyes, as tightly as I can. With my ears heating up, I probably look like a pale porcelain mug, between two bright red handles. But, feeling that there's not much left to lose, I go on with my quest for facing the terrible truth.

"Great," I groan. "And what about... your hair?"

"It's woolly," he states. "Your scientific research concluded with verifying your theory."

I palm my face, refusing to look at him.

"Hey," he says, "you asked for my permission. Nothing happened."

"Yeah. Unless I lost control over my actions for three days."

"Don't worry. You were with us. Or sleeping."

"Okay, but what else did I do?" I ask him outright. "Was there anything weirder that this?"

"Do you want to know what else you wished to touch?"

"No. I don't."

"Do you want a promise then, that if you ask for my permission to feel me up next time, I won't let you?"

"I wish I could answer that with a solid no," I grunt, feeling defeated.

"I wish I could too." He grins.

I shake my head. Then I take a deep breath, and I look him in the eyes, finally.

"Okay. Did I make a complete fool of myself?"

"Of course not," he answers, sounding serious now. "I wouldn't allow it to happen, I hope you know that."

"This hair thing—"

"You were just curious. What's wrong with that? It's not like it really was my—"

"Okay." I nod quickly. "Okay. Is there anything else I need to know? Or is this the whole truth?"

"The whole truth is," he says, "you never gave us a reason to intervene. Your self-control never left you. Not for a single minute. It's not that you were making funny things, and we laughed at your expense. You were your usual self, just less defensive. More approachable. More interested. And, if anything, you made a fool of us."

"Sorry."

"... and we enjoyed every minute of it."

"Ah. Okay," I sigh, feeling much easier. "So, no more weird moments. That's a relief."

"I didn't say that." He smiles. "Everyone has a favorite story now. But they are endearing."

"Okay." I nod warily. "What's yours?"

"I don't know," he muses. "Do you remember when the police pulled us over, late at night? Of course, you don't. You don't remember anything. You were so deep in your haze, you were smiling as if you heard angels singing, not the sirens."

"Was I in your car?"

"No, we just let you wander the streets with your son on your side, making bets on your chances of walking under a bus. Come on, I drove you home every day. Never mind. So, the police pulled us over, and you asked me why. I told you it was because I was black, and they were suspecting I kidnapped you and your son."

"It's not funny at all."

"It's not. Your reaction was. Your sense of justice kicked in."

"Ouch." I grimace. "Was I fucking with the police? Did I try to enlighten them? It sounds like something I do. I mean, even when being in normal mode, I have a history with them."

"You enlightened them, all right. And me too. But, luckily, you chose a different approach to the usual, boring color issues."

"Let me guess. I called them morons, only in an ironically elaborate way, and we spent a few hours in preliminary arrest."

"It would have been nice." He grins. "But no. You simply told them they were wrong. Pointing out that I wasn't black. I was purple. Which, in the light of all those sirens, struck us all as the undisputed truth."

"Oh, dear."

"Yeah. It was a serious moment of revelation. The cops wet themselves on the spot, they were laughing so hard. Ben was hysterical. And you just kept sitting there, with a dreamy smile on your face."

"And you?" I ask.

"I tried to remain somewhat composed, because I still had to save you from a drug test. Okay, I admit, I failed. I don't remember when I had so much fun."

"You told me something like I didn't make a fool of myself."

"Because you didn't. You were like a wise woman, who just told her followers the truth, which they weren't able to see with their inept eyes. We all admitted you were right. There was nothing foolish about it."

"Right." I shrug.

"Also," he says smiling, "it was the very first time I saw a kind of admiration in your eyes when you looked at me. It must have been a really nice hue."

I can't help but laugh.

"And your drug test came out negative too," he goes on. "See, it's a good story. With a happy ending."

"I don't know." I laugh. "It might need a moral too."

"All right." He shrugs. "I got one. It's time for you to dip into the most serious cases we have. Alone."

"What?" I ask, sounding confused. "How? Why? Because I'm a practicing lunatic?"

"That. And, you know, saying that you have a history with the police, in other words, means that you were doing humanitarian cases too, in the past," he states simply. "Or something very similar. High profile cases, for sure."

I stare at him. Then I slowly clear my throat.

"You're dangerous. Sometimes."

"You're dangerous all the time," he says.