There was too much noise. It was a cacophony of voices and head-pounding classic rock; the bar smelled like smoke, and no doubt every inch of his body did, too. His mouth tasted of beer and cigarettes—he smoked when he drank. Suddenly he was in the bathroom, though he'd been in a crowd of people trying to get a drink at the bar only seconds ago . . . had he walked to the bathroom? He couldn't remember. But he was in a stall, even though all he had to do was urinate. At least, he thought he had to urinate . . . he couldn't really feel his bladder, but he assumed his body knew what it was doing and unzipped his fly, his fingers numb and fumbling. His eyes focused on the stall wall as he found his face closer to it. He shot out his free arm to hold himself steady and not let his face smush into the tile. He was all right; he was in control. A little swagger meant nothing—the floor looked kind of comfortable . . . perhaps it would cool off his sweaty self—why was it so hot?—but he instinctively knew not to head for the floor. The bathroom was so blurry . . . was it smoke? Was the place on fire? Why was it so fuzzy? His eyes refocused on the wall. People had written all over it—a strange yet common phenomenon occurring when drunkards were given writing utensils and put in incommodious spaces with nothing to do while they waited as they peed or recouped from the dizzy spells no doubt following them from their beer bottles. What were all these scribbles? Phone numbers, names, people raging about political nonsense or scribbling what they thought was a witty repartee for the comment of a long-gone occupant. He tried to read some of it but couldn't focus enough to interpret any of the words or numbers.

He finished his business and somehow found the sink in which to wash his hands. What was he doing here? God, what was he doing here? He wasn't with his roommates. He wasn't with anyone. He didn't want to be with anyone. There was no way he'd ever go out with Derek and Mark. Those guys took part in enough boring debauchery without him; the cluster of venues they frequented consisted of sports bars and tawdry late-night clubs he wouldn't be caught dead in. In fact, it was his roommates' noisome presence in the apartment that had driven him out in the first place, and because it had started to rain, he'd decided to go into the nearest bar, which had happened to be some hole-in-the-wall place with hardly any lighting and a mediocre cover band smashing away in the corner. A few drinks, and he'd been done for. What a lightweight he'd become; it was embarrassing. Will rarely drank; there was no reason to. He'd long ago realized (with the aid of his parents) that he was enough of a head case without adding foreign substances to his bloodstream. Besides, usually, people drank to socialize, and because socializing was of negative interest to him, he found alcohol consumption quite pointless. Now, though, here he was, drunk and feeling inwardly disorderly, wishing he could just find a bed.

Once out of the bathroom, Will wound his way through the crowd, heading to the bar for another drink, though he knew somewhere in his foggy brain that another beer was probably the last thing he needed right then. He needed to go home, really, but he couldn't motivate himself to head for the door. There were too many intoxicated people around him. Too many unfortunate-looking women attempting to look fortunate, too many asinine men pretending to find them fortunate in order to get fortunate . . . ugh. It was all so disgusting that he wanted to vomit and fleetingly pictured himself back in the toilet. They were all the same, these people.

Will blinked hard, pushing past someone he cared nothing about, and steadied himself by placing both hands on the bar. The bar tender was far away at the other end serving someone, and despite his struggle to get to the bar, he was glad it was crowded and even happier he was likely to be ignored. He decided to turn around. It was time to go.

A wave of heat washed over him; why was it so damn hot? There were too many people everywhere. He was pushing through people again, likely the same ones he'd pushed through to get to the bar; they seemed to be giving him dirty looks. Was he pushing them too hard? Who cared. He didn't know them. He didn't owe them anything. They were all wastes. Some tall person passed him by; Will's inhibited reflexes caused him to look too late to see the guy's face, but he did pick up the fact that the tall guy was a blond. Funny—he'd wondered momentarily if it had been that Simon kid he worked with. "He's underage, anyhow," Will heard himself say aloud, though the words sounded as if they were far away, from someone with a small voice. He blinked hard again. The door was not too far . . . he could make it. He was out of the bar crowd, then, and moving through some pub tables. His eyes were glued to the door, which was within a few yards of him, but as he passed a particular table, someone reached out and touched his arm.

"Hey!"

He spun around; dizziness overwhelmed him for a second, but he hid it. The person before him was one of a small group of nondescript girls. She was blonde and round-faced, with a low-cut shirt showing even rounder breasts. She looked like a million other girls, except she was smiling at him.

"My friend bet I wouldn't ask you a question."

Will stared at her. Stupid pick-up banter. He refused to respond and just glared.

Her confidence obviously wavered, but she wasn't giving up. The girls behind her watched, giggling. "Would you be interested in a round of shots?" she managed to say, not letting her grin wane.

Shots? He was disgusted. "No, thanks," he replied, surprised at his own politeness. He turned away.

"Just one?" she pushed, touching his arm again.

What was she trying to do? He liked the touch. He hadn't been with a girl in a long time, and he knew he could get any one of those plain-faced coterie at the table to go home with him—in spite of his gawky appearance, women were for reasons unbeknownst to him attracted to him. His roommates certainly wouldn't mind; they brought enough women of their own home—but he didn't want them. They made him nauseated. Nobody was worth it. "Fine. One shot," he heard himself responding. It didn't surprise him as much as his politeness had.

"Excellent!" the girl cried, pulling him over to a table. "I'm Sarah."

She rattled off the names of the other women at the table, but Will didn't pay any attention to them. The name "Sarah" had brought to his mind an image he'd been letting his mind crawl over for days. The woman in the bookstore—the one he'd seen several times and who'd claimed her name was Sara—he'd been unable to stop thinking about her. He lay in bed at night devising ways to take her apart. He could do it, too. In fact, it had begun to develop as his new project. One he could focus on in attempt to forget the mundane consistency of his daily existence and the open wound in the hospital bed. This stupid woman was nothing compared to the other. There was nothing in her to tear down . . . nothing worth taking apart. She was easy to see through, like all the rest.

He drank a shot with them, magnanimously paying for the round, and they were sad to see him go immediately afterward though he'd said very little and not smiled once in the short time he was with them. The moment he turned and walked outside, he forgot their names and their faces.

There were tons of cabs on the street. He merely had to put out his hand and one was there for him. Once in the back of it, he muttered an address to the unremarkable man in the driver's spot and then sat hard against the patched leather seat, throwing his head back, rubbing his fingers across his closed eyes, hoping to quell the dizziness romping about inside his skull. As the ride drew on, Will never opened his eyes; in fact, he began to feel worse, not better, and the constant stopping and starting of the car made his stomach turn. He wanted to throw up. That shot had been the last straw. He didn't even know what it had been, but it was really hitting him in a bad way all of a sudden. Though he didn't believe in a god of any sort, he began to pray that he would be able to get out of the cab before the vomit came. The dizziness compounded with the stomachache was almost too much to bear, but somehow he made it, and the cab driver was telling him they'd arrived and trying to get payment out of him.

At last looking at the world through his groggy vision, Will shoved the rest of his bills through the plastic window—paying no attention to the fact that he was giving the man twice what the cab ride had cost—and stumbled out onto the pavement. Before he knew it, the car had puttered off, leaving him standing. He was struck suddenly by the quiet and the darkness of the street. His apartment was in a busy neighborhood that was neither quiet nor dark, no matter what time it was. And just as he began to realize this, his gaze focused on the façade of his parents' house.

In utter confusion, Will just stood there for a few moments while his brain attempted to make some sense of where he was, but it wasn't long before he forgot about his location in order to keel over on the grass and puke up the hours' worth of alcohol he'd just consumed.

Natural light warmed his eyelids, his face, his back. Birds chirped somewhere . . . far off; he couldn't make out where. His head throbbed with hurt. It felt as if someone was shoving a knitting needle through the space between his ears. He delayed opening his eyes for the pain as well as because he'd been having a pleasant dream he wished to continue, though as it grew more watery in his solidifying thoughts and he began to realize he was not in his bed in the apartment, Will grudgingly woke himself up. What met his eyes at first didn't register: above, a red and white umbrella stood, not casting any shade on him at all due to the position of the sun. He stared at it a moment, contemplating his pounding head and the splash of open blue sky beyond the umbrella. Obviously, he was outdoors . . .

He sat up so fast his eyes swam with black dizziness and his head screamed with vengeful pain. He squeezed the palms of his hands against his temples and felt his pulse there. When the fog cleared, he saw exactly what he'd expected to see; he was sitting on a chaise lounge by his parents' pool. There was a built-in rock waterfall trickling water, and at the top of it was a little pond with koi fish. He was on the deck, which was full of tables and lounge chairs settled in various conversational positions, while a bar was in the back, underneath an overhanging roof. Everything was impeccable, from the matching furniture covers to the perfectly-tended plants in the landscaped yard. What on earth was he doing here?

Memory of the previous night filtered into his brain as he sat there. He'd been drunk at a bar. He'd gotten in a cab and driven home . . . but the address he'd given the driver must have been his parents' home address, not his apartment address. That was the only obvious explanation; after he'd gotten there, he must've puked, drunkenly crawled to the backyard, and passed out. He didn't remember doing it, but the lingering taste of vomit in his mouth was reminiscent of what must have been.

Disgusted with himself, Will rose. He felt incredibly achy. His head throbbed and his arms and legs stung of stiffness, but at least his stomach didn't hurt. He must have purged himself of the alcohol before passing out. He decided against heading back the way he'd likely come in order to avoid looking at whatever he'd thrown up and instead went to the sliding back doors. On the ground, amongst a patch of geraniums and ferns, was a huge ceramic mushroom surrounded by smaller figurines. Will knew his parents kept a spare key in a little secret panel right under its spotted cap. Bending over made his head throb, but he managed to feel around and find the key.

As he unlocked the door, he wondered if his parents were home. It had to be at least seven or eight in the morning, judging by the sun's brightness, and it was Sunday, so for all he knew, they were still asleep. His parents were sociable people; they'd probably partied the night before and would sleep until eleven or twelve—if they were home. He certainly wouldn't wake them if they were. He'd wash up a bit in the bathroom, grab some art supplies he'd left weeks ago when moving out, walk the two miles to the train station, and be on his way.

Quietly, Will swirled some mouthwash and rinsed his face in the downstairs bathroom. He felt disgusting, and his concurrent head and stomachache were making him wish he'd stayed on the pool chair. Everything seemed a bit foggy around him; he even kept the light off to appease the pounding in his skull, which enabled the shadows to stay in their places. Stumbling from the bathroom, feeling at least more hygienic than previously, Will silently began his creep up the stairs. His parents' house was enormous but relatively new, so there weren't squeaky floorboards or creaking door hinges that might conspire to make noise. He'd never liked the place. As a child he'd often felt scared, because whenever his parents had company over (which was often) he was left to his own devices in the upstairs floors. There were so many rooms, so many closets, so many shadows under so many pieces of furniture . . . if he'd ever felt inclined to seek out his parents when he'd felt scared, they'd tell him to go back upstairs. Even now, heading up to the second floor, Will's imagination crawled with the memories of imagined murderers hiding under the bed and dark, unknown creatures lurking in the shadows. He had been scared often, as a child. Perhaps his parents' indifference toward him had prompted his desire to believe they were not really his own.

Will turned when he reached the landing. There was a split level series of rooms to the right; if he continued up the stairs, he would reach the second floor, where his parents' room was. He did not want to go there. Several weeks ago, when he had hastily packed his few belongings and moved out, Will had forgotten to snatch up a few art supplies he owned. Though he seldom felt the desire to draw, when he did get the urge, it had to be fulfilled. He'd been loath to return to his parents' to get his chalks and crayons, and he'd felt too lethargic to go out and look for an art supply store. Now that he had unexpectedly found himself back at his parents' residence, he'd decided he might as well get something out of the situation. It wasn't as if his mother or father would ever notice the materials missing. They probably hadn't even noticed that he was missing yet. Entering one of the rooms in which he kept random belongings, Will went straight to a small chest of drawers where he knew a bag of pencils and chalks to be. Much to his surprise, however, when he began to rummage through the bureau, he noticed that the entire thing had been cleared out. In fact, he realized as he glanced around the room that nothing of his was in it anymore. His parents had entirely cleaned it out. Something sunk in Will. He had always surmised that his parents didn't really want him around—that they had only kept him because they didn't know what to do with him—but for some reason, seeing how quickly they had recuperated from his absence seared the reality of their callousness into his brain. A dull rage began to seethe deep inside him. He told himself that his anger stemmed from the fact that he now had no idea where his art supplies were, but the more base human element in his gut knew that the ire came from a darker place.

Telling himself that it was time to get the hell out of the house, Will shut one of the drawers a little too loudly, and it seemed to echo into the belly of the building. He paused with bated breath, waiting for some noise to indicate he'd awakened his parents. Nothing happened, though, as he sat there in the dim shadows of the room. He almost expected some ghoul to leap out at him, but the ensuing silence created a void that unsettled him more than a bogeyman would have.

Getting to his feet, Will was about to make his exit when he spotted, on a side table near a chair by the room's solitary round window, a newspaper; even in the dim lighting he could tell it was a copy of The Wanderer. His chest emptying of the panic that had begun filling it, he quickly stepped to the table and picked up the newspaper. Anger flushed his cheeks. How dare something he loved—something he had found so personal—be at his parents' house! It didn't belong anywhere near them. His parents could not possibly have any interest in such a paper. It was his . . . his for the possibility that this edition might have something worthwhile in it . . . something by Gwendolyn Newsham. He opened the thing, heart beating fast, and scoured it for her name; the rest of it didn't matter. Where was it . . . where was it? Letters spelling out nonsensical material whizzed by as he hastily flipped through the pages. Where was it?

And then, toward the end of the paper, there it was: her name, beneath a short article titled "Newspeak for the 21st Century." He couldn't read it here. He felt instinctively that he had to be somewhere private, somewhere safe, alone, and worthy when he read it, when his brain ate the ideas and words of this piece. Now, he really did have to get out of this house. Who cared about his art supplies? He'd entirely forgotten them.

Before closing the newspaper, Will eagerly made note that this time, at the end of the article, there was the author's email address.