“I don’t even know your name…” those words not hers in the same sense that music does not belong to the instrument from which it is played, rather the result of soft strumming, strategically plucked strings somewhere inside her, the minstrel (this man here? was he the one playing her?) in command, humming a piper tune you couldn’t help but follow.

“It’s there…” that God-voice said from out of the black hallows of light’s absence. “On my check.”

The minstrel bent Corrin’s head down, focusing her eyes on the small, cerulean blue line, the thick, inky curls of a practiced hand spelling out what she already should have known.

“E. Tromal? What does the E stand for?”

“Why does it have to stand for anything?”

She squinted hard through the protective glass, seeing for the first time the thousands of tiny scrapes and scratches, finger smudges and greasy smears collected over a time span all could guess at but none could know for sure, all of it working in conjunction with the light, for the light to further obscure those hidden features. Shouldn’t there have been a reflection? The light shining back off this glass, illuminating something? Almost as if he…

“Oh, damnit it all to hell!”

The high-pitched squeal took her off guard, leaning to see an old owl of a woman, all jowl, jewelry, and thick crochet flashing about at the next window and the Teller there, Candice(?), trying to catch a glimpse of the floor being addressed, failing, with her hair and nose smushed up against the glass and the thought surely had crossed her mind to blow a good, hard raspberry because with the way things had been going this morning a screaming old hag was the last thing anyone needed.

“Everything alright, ma’am?” Candice(?) asked, not really caring and doing nothing to hide it.

“No, as a matter of fact everything is not alright. I left it right here. Here…” kicking a rubber-booted toe against the wood partition, eyes wide, thinking that some omnipotent evil was at work in this white-hall feigning haven, cosmic forces conspiring in their dark corners of the night to strand her in this tomb with God’s flood transforming land to ocean around her and now left without even the most common of guards.

“What did you…?”

“My umbrella!” Parchment cheeks flushed with the rosy red of morning, perhaps making up for what the storm took away. “It’s pouring like the plague out there and somebody’s stolen my umbrella!”

“Well, maybe you…”

“This is not my fault! Someone has stolen it, stolen it from a poor old woman…” she caught a glimpse of something propped under a hand, something that could be… “You!” Corrin flinched as the woman rounded on her shadow gentleman, who casually tilted his chin left and downward to meet the accusation, the side of his face now visible lost across the black mountain ridge of his profile, revealing something to everyone but her. It was the strangest thing, the moment their eyes locked, the finger-pointer and her prey, the world went silent, the quiet squeaks of shoe-soles on slick tile halted in the sudden commotion, heads turned to see a battle never to be fought, the old woman’s jaw hanging off of broken hinges, a great gummy cave from which no sound could be heard, those conspiring lesser-demons taking speech from her as well, as if what they had already done hadn’t been enough.

“I’m afraid you’re mistaken,” he said.

The almost-incident was over quicker than it began, the old owl, forever remaining nameless in the land of the named, slackened as a windless sail on the dead calm of the high seas, withdrew, was gone, fading into the light, sucked back out into the Apocalyptic rain like a golf ball through a hose, succumbing to demonic design through no will of her own, gone before she even realized what that meant, the PLAY button pushed, allowing onlookers to spring back to states of animation, the scene forgotten to everyone save Corrin who, half enshrouded in her fog-world, was gaping in amazement at an event that was anything but amazing.

“That was amazing…”

He could have smiled. Maybe he did. The shadow leaned forward, only a degree or two but somehow such a small gesture managed to transcend the boundaries of appropriate response. A dizziness enshrouded her, ears popping as if she’d dropped altitude too quickly, feeling her lungs stop, her heart beat a few fast-paced thump-thump-thumps and halt, could feel her eyes dilating, convinced for a single moment that…

“Not yet,” the man said and you could hear the smile now, no hiding that and no faking it either. All problems vanished, out of the nowhere they had sprung from and Corrin breathed deeply, the fog around her a bit thicker though her senses had sharpened somewhat, awash with confusion. What the hell had just happened?

“Not yet?” she asked, her inverted megaphone voice, placing a hand to her temple to steady the vibrations there.

“You looked like you were going to faint. If you’re thinking about doing something like that you should wait until I’m in a position to catch you.”

Perfectly plausible. Where had the faintness come from? Should she see a doctor? Hadn’t Uncle What’s-his-name dropped dead from something like that, some sudden onset of, well, death? Mysterious, the figurative bus roaring out of nowhere. She hadn’t eaten anything yet, maybe that was it, not a bite all day and unless the digital clock face next to her monitor was a fibber it was definitely time. Corrin thought of puppet strings. Puppet strings and a good, tender steak.

“Sorry,” she said, trying not to look too crazy while running a hand through her hair in a distinctly crazy way. “It’s been a weird day.”

“The rain will do that. Does that mean you won’t have lunch with me?”

Such an enigmatic tone, hinting at a million different possibilities, all of them equally enticing, luring her heart out through the money slot long before her mind convinced her mouth to speak. When it did it was as if it realized the unnatural length of the pause and needed to make up for lost time.

“Oh no I’m sorry sure of course yes I’d love some lunch.” She bit her lip, wondering if the damage had already been done. He could be smiling…

And he was. He knew what her answer was going to be long before he had started coming here, wouldn’t have bothered with any of this if he had believed otherwise. He brought up his Promethian hand, the long black umbrella clutched there, and shook it gently. “Well, as luck would have it, I happen to have here with me what seams to be a finely crafted umbrella…”

“Good!” She half-yelled it, excitement brimming in her, much more than the moment warranted, a grade-school child at kickball, jumping jacks of the victorious. What was wrong with her? She didn’t behave this way, accepting lunch dates from complete strangers, any strangers, not even mild acquaintances, let alone people whose faces she hadn’t even seen, let alone with such inexplicable, rabid desire. “You know, um, because it’s raining… raining pretty hard… out there.” Shit. Stupid. Don’t let him know you’re desperate, don’t give him cause for concern. You are a normal, well-adjusted, content, middle-aged woman (middle-aged? Really? Already? Ohmygod, where did the time go? Is that what I am now? I must be if that’s how I think of myself. Is that what I thought? Yes. My first thought. Good lord, this is worse that I thought) who has a bit of a dangerous streak, bit of the old rebel, that’s all. Nope. No crazy here!

“I wouldn’t worry about that,” he talk-smiled.

What? He knew! How did he know? Telepathy, right? ESP? Oh God…

“The rain,” he said, not unkind. “I wouldn’t worry about the rain. It won’t last much longer.”

“Really? How do you know?” Keep him talking, can’t focus on too many things at once, more important what he’s saying than seeing the signs of what you’re thinking, no crazy, not crazy, no crazy, not crazy.

The silhouette shrugged. “Call it a hunch.”

“It’s a hunch!”

…

Oh God he didn’t think that was funny what the fuck is the matter with you? Do you want to be single forever? Die alone? Is that what you want? Really? Because you sure as hell fooled me, acting like this. Are you trying to scare him away?

“Let me…um,” she was fidgeting, hands alternately tucking and re-tucking hair locks behind her ears whether they moved from where she put them or not. “Um… yea, just, uh, let me… let me get my coat!”

“I’ll be right here.”

A line had formed behind the talking shadow, a long one, one she hadn’t noticed, the fog that had managed to part had only allowed this one figure to enter, all others still ghosts in the distance, spectral forms scurrying through the ether, and as she darted away, after flipping over the THIS WINDOW CLOSED sign, their came from those not-seen ghouls a unifying moan of disappointment, of disbelief, each entity in that mist reaching the same pitch, same starting point, same duration, decibel swell, same concluding gasp for oxygen, such an odd phenomenon, so much so that all of them (the final tally was to be seven), became instant friends and the following week instituted “poker night.”