Gwen felt like ripping her hair out. She was so frustrated that her head felt like it was going to melt and her wrists and forearms were so tense they were aching. She hadn't felt this kind of frustration in a while—a month at least. Since she'd had to pay some bills and wanted to deny their existence, even her own existence, and the existence of everything else. This was madness.

She was going to have to get a job.

A real job.

One that would pay for her electricity and gas and water. It was terrible, a most detestable reality, but she was going to have to do it. Her writing hadn't made her more than a few dollars, and they'd been finished off on a cup of coffee and a croissant that very morning. Her fame and fortune and future plans—well, they'd gone out the window for the moment. Her little column hadn't garnered any feedback whatsoever. That was probably for two reasons: first, because The Wanderer was a small, alternative paper that rarely sold well (which she'd known in the beginning but been afraid to think about), and second, because, when Gwen did get around to looking at her column in the paper just to see her name in print, she'd realized the editor had put a typo in her email address. So even if some person had wanted to comment or sing her praise or whatnot, his letter was likely floating around cyberspace with a destination that was far from her inbox. It was infuriating. Just enraging! The Wanderer, of course, didn't want anything else from her. She'd sent in a few more ideas but they'd been shot down. It was just so unfair and so . . . so ignorant! If these people in this city knew any better, why, they'd treat her words like golden drops of chocolate and gobble them up. Because what she had to say about the intricate workings of the world was as vital as the air they took in with each breath. Why would nobody realize that? Why did no one listen? She was right about so much—she knew it—and yet . . . nobody cared. It hurt too much to think about. And Gwen knew there was no way she could call her parents and tell them about her little misadventures (that was what she was terming her lack of success, now, not yet wanting to refer to it as failure). Mom and dad would send a check, but she couldn't sacrifice her pride for a little piece of paper with some numbers and a signature on it. She was their accomplished, capable daughter. She couldn't disappoint them anymore than she could disappoint herself; she would not be like her brothers.

She'd keep her nice things. She'd be all right. She just needed to find a day job. One that would still allow her time to write as she sat at a desk. Yes, that was what it needed to be: a desk job. If she could sit behind a counter or a little wall at a computer and be charged with minimal duties, she could pull up drive and type articles to kill downtime. She'd be paid for doing what they wanted once in a while but what she wanted most of the while. How could she find a job like that? It didn't matter what it was, really. Unfortunately, Gwen wasn't a networker. She knew virtually nobody who could help her out with finding a job; it would have to happen via an internet search.

It didn't take her long to find a few leads. Even though she really didn't know what to look for, Gwen had basic qualifications that would work when applying for any secretarial position. She'd actually gone to school for journalism and graduated magna cum laude, but little good it had done her. Gwen hadn't been able to find any journalism work at all. (It was somewhat due to her obstinacy; she would only apply to jobs she felt were worth her qualifications, and there were few jobs which, in her opinion, were.) When it came to filling out applications, Gwen had little to offer in the areas of previous work and references. Her only previous work experience dealt with freelance writing and some meager retail positions she'd held to earn spending money during her college days. And references? Well, she just had to put down the names of some family friends, because Gwen wasn't close enough to anyone she'd worked with or taken a class from to put their contact information into a job application. Hopefully, no one would check on her references, anyhow, because she really didn't want her parents to know she was looking for menial work.

Applying for jobs was horrible. It was akin to peeling off her fingernails. By the time she'd applied for seven low-level positions (all of which were entirely unworthy), her head was aching from staring into the computer screen and her body hurt from sitting still for so long. She'd drunk seven cups of coffee in her isolation, and now, stifling some worming urge to get out and do something with her day, she figured it was best to just stay where she was and get a bit of writing done.

It was just the next day when Gwen received her first and only phone call concerning the applications she'd filled out. When the school phoned her, she wasn't even sure what they were talking about, because she couldn't remember what exactly she'd filled out in her several-hour application spree. However, when they asked if she could come in for an interview that afternoon, her reaction was to accept with as much enthusiasm as possible (after all, she needed a job quite desperately if she wanted to keep the cable and internet services that distracted her from her daily work). She couldn't remember how long it had been since she'd been on a job interview. Sure, she'd gone and promoted her written work to various editors and journals, but that was different. She had known that her work was good and that, whether or not anyone else agreed, her writing would still be good. Now, she was going to be evaluated based on her skills, whatever that might mean. Gwen figured they'd be concerned with her organization, multi-tasking, filing, typing, and phone-answering abilities. The actual position was for an assistant attendance secretary at a high school downtown. Keeping attendance—how hard could that be? And she wouldn't even be the actual attendance secretary; she'd be the assistant to the attendance secretary. It would be a blow-off job where she could continue to think about what was really important to her, what the purpose of her existence was: her writing.

She looked in the full-length mirror in her bedroom and frowned at herself. She looked pale, she thought. Lifting a hand to her cheek, Gwen touched the skin there and felt her cheekbone beneath. Why was she so bony? Maybe she needed to eat more.

When she had the time, Gwen actually enjoyed cooking. This was somewhat ironic, because she rarely ate much, but when she did suddenly notice that she hadn't had much to eat she'd go all out and make some grand little banquet for herself. Sometimes, she purposely prepared certain meals in order to concentrate on topics she wanted to write about. When she'd been doing a piece on Hindu deities, she'd wanted to make something with curry just so the smell would permeate her apartment and put her in the mood. Once, when writing about the concept of grandmothers and the fear of elderly she believed pervaded American society to negative consequences, Gwen had baked five different kinds of pie. She hadn't been entirely sure why she'd done so, until she sat and thought about her own maternal grandmother, who had always seemed to be making pie when Gwen visited her as a child. The entire afternoon had gone to pie-making, and she'd only eaten one pie before her article was finished (hence the rest of the pies, which had no longer served a purpose, had gone into the trash). Because of her anomalous cooking and eating habits, Gwen's cabinets and refrigerator possessed an odd assortment of ingredients that didn't work very well together, so no meal could ever be just thrown together.

Particularly now, before her interview. She couldn't very well have her stomach growling while someone was grilling her with questions. It was going on noon, and her interview was at three-fifteen, so she had time to stop at a café.

Her hair was dark against her pale face, and it cast purple shadows under her black eyes; Gwen thought sometimes that she resembled a raccoon, and when she did, she was upset. However, thoughts of her appearance were usually quickly replaced with other considerations as soon as she stopped looking at herself. Turning away from her reflection, Gwen dressed and put on a minimal amount of make-up, focusing mainly on making her eyes look less tired. The weather was still quite bitter, so she threw on a coat and wrapped a scarf around her neck before heading out into the bright day.

The light burned her eyes until they adjusted to the sun. It was actually warmer than she'd expected—she didn't need her winter coat; an anorak would have done the job—but she didn't feel like going back inside now that she was already out.

There was something in the air, that day. Something strange. Gwen felt a sadness inside, as if she was giving into something she'd been determined to overcome. Everyone had jobs, she knew, and most people hated them. Most people sat for hours each day, doing tasks they didn't enjoy, just to pay the bills. It was a bizarre fact of life that human beings couldn't enjoy the time they were given to live their lives. They were put into the world, souls and beings, with passions and talents, and society forced them to stifle those things by causing them to fit in. Not fit in in the sense that one fits in with a group of others at a social event. Not like that. It was deeper and darker than that. Fitting in on a social level was very different than fitting in on a human being level, and Gwen knew the difference. First, she knew it because she didn't care at all about fitting in socially. She didn't care about other people, and she lived her life the way she wanted to: as a writer. But she cared very, very much about fitting in on a human level, because it was what tore her apart a little more each day. She frantically wanted to escape it, because it was a murderous, coldblooded monster that had been tracking her since she'd been born. It tracked everyone; it was a hunter unlike any other. It followed its prey through the darkest tunnels and never lost scent of it; one could avoid it for some time if one was clever and unwavering, but time itself became an enemy, because the monster gained ground with each moment that passed. Yes, to fit in on a human level was to accept society. To accept the fact that you would not likely be one of the rare few who achieved a dream, that you would have to fill out paperwork and earn a living and trust in systems of money and insurance and social security and welfare and on and on and on. It meant that you had to believe in things like rent and business cards and the price of gasoline. It meant that you had to spend the majority of the short time you'd been given to experience life doing things that were of little intrinsic value. It meant you had to waste the only worthwhile gift you'd been given. Almost everyone fell before the monster and gave in; Gwen was too afraid to do so.

So far, she'd been on the fringes of fitting in on the human level. She'd done only the bare minimum to keep herself alive. She knew she'd been fortunate to have parents who were willing to give her money, but at the same time she hated them for it. She hated them for buying into the whole concept of money and the misconception that it held value, and she hated herself even more for giving into them and accepting their money, because she had had to sell herself out to some degree in order to sustain herself. Yes, it was a tortuous choice. Gwen wanted more than anything to be able to entirely reject society, but she was afraid of that, as well.

Today, as she walked to the first job interview she'd had since graduating college, she felt that the monster had gained good, solid ground in the chase; her time was limited.

The school wasn't far from Gwen's neighborhood if she took the train. She got some lunch then headed straight to the high school, and she arrived nearly half an hour early, which hadn't been her intent. School must have just ended, because there were streams of teenagers coming out of the doors and heading to their cars. The last thing she wanted to do was be around a bunch of high school kids. Still, she figured she might as well wade through them and just get into the building, where she'd at least have somewhere to sit down. And perhaps they'd be ready to interview her early. She hated it—edging around all those kids. They were raucous and shouting things all over the place. She didn't want to see their unenlightened smiles and hear their happy voices; they were still young and hadn't been spoiled by the real world. The monster hadn't quite found their trails. The moment they graduated, though, the second they turned eighteen, he'd catch their scents and begin tracking them as well. Gwen didn't want to be reminded that she'd been as naïve as them, once.

Some boy opened the door for her, obviously realizing she was not a fellow student, and she gave a wan smile in thanks as she entered the building. It smelled of bodies inside. Of teenage sweat brought on by the musty old heaters that no doubt kept the building at a boiling temperature. Everything was very yellow inside; she wasn't sure why it felt that way, but there was some ridiculous cheeriness about the place that made her want to turn right around and walk back out. She hadn't been in a high school in years. But then she caught sight of a sign pointing out the main office, and realizing she only had to walk a few yards, she decided to just suck up her nausea and deal with it.

"You must be Gwendolyn Newsham, is that right?" asked a young, obviously-oblivious girl at the front desk of the office.

She has to be a student, Gwen thought . In reply, she answered simply, "Yes."

"Just a minute. I'll get Mrs. Ringword."

The term "ringworm" popped into Gwen's mind and she felt an irrational fear of this woman. But when Mrs. Ringword rounded the corner, Gwen was immediately relieved. This woman was no threat whatsoever. Not only could Gwen tell that, but she could also sense, before the woman even opened her mouth, that she was a complete moron. She was one of those women who thought she was everyone's mother. She was probably in her fifties, and she was round and plump as a cat that had been fed too well. In fact, that was exactly what Mrs. Ringword reminded Gwen of: a fat cat. Her face was pinched up into a little nose and a mouth that Gwen was afraid would be perpetually smiling in the same pursed way it was smiling now. The woman was dressed like a stereotypical teacher, with pins of little apples on her jacket lapel and some shoes that looked like something a geriatric patient would wear. Her hair fluffed around her head in a mush of dyed-strawberry-blonde hair that was as garish as the blue eye-shadow she'd splashed on her eyelids. The whole package was awful, but that was all right—Gwen knew she'd get the job.

The interview went more smoothly than even Gwen had imagined it would. The worst parts of it were not reference checks or questions about her previous experience; Mrs. Ringword, who was in fact the attendance secretary, didn't even ask her about any of the information on her application. Instead, she was interested in chatting about the pot-luck she'd had the night before and her four cats (which Gwen was not surprised to hear she had). The worst part of the interview was when Mrs. Ringword was not talking, actually, because then Gwen was forced to think of some response that wouldn't come out as acidic as the taste in her mouth. It was evident from the interview that this position hadn't been formed for someone who was actually efficient but for someone who could sit and listen to Mrs. Ringword talk. When Gwen realized this, she felt a dread form in her stomach. What torture it would be to sit and listen to this woman blather on all day about who-knew-what! Still, she needed a job, and this woman was practically feeding it to her. Gwen would be a fool to turn it town.

"I'd love the job," she found herself responding when she was asked whether she'd take the position. Gwen was surprised at the words coming out of her mouth; she wanted to squeeze her lips shut and peel them off her face for speaking such nonsense, and yet it was as if she had lost control of her speech.

Mrs. Ringword definitely didn't notice the lack of zeal in her new assistant secretary. Some forms were passed back and forth. Gwen was led around to meet a few other people in the office. She forced a few more words out of her mouth (although she had no idea what they were because they sounded like a foreign language). Everything passed in a blur, and before she knew it, Gwen was heading home.

She had a job. It had pretty much fallen into her lap. And the monster took a step closer.