I frowned. A wild bunny can have all sorts of diseases, maybe even worms, and I'd just chowed down like it didn't matter.

I rubbed my stomach. I didn't feel sick. I could only hope I remained that way.

Beep. Click. I turned and saw Harry entering the building.

It seemed he'd been too busy getting out of the rain to notice my strange eating habits.

Pelted by rain, I raced to the door.

I knocked. It still didn't open.

Jolene, a short, unfriendly woman with straight blonde hair pushed the door open. She didn't say a word to me, she only grumpily let me in.

Once through the cramped little security corridor, I set about my morning preparations, like shoving my lunch in a refrigerator crammed with plastic bags of unidentifiable substances, on top of a cheesecake tray that had occupied that same shelf for more than three weeks. The food had better attendance than the employees.

As I warmed up my first cup of coffee of the day, I noticed Harry sipping a steaming beverage as he stared out our giant glass windows. The rain pounded the glass in thick shadowy sheets that made it difficult to see past the street lamps in the parking lot.

"Boy, it's really coming down. Reminds me of that one time I went canoing on Lake Michigan. I was out in the middle and I took on so much water I thought I'd have to swim to shore!"

I just said "huh" and drank my coffee. I absently stared at the tropical birds and flowers on his shirt.

No mention of the dead rabbit. I took this as a good omen.

"The fish went crazy, I tell you what. The way they all rose to the surface like they did, you would have thought someone dropped a stick of dynamite down there."

I rolled my eyes, marching into the call center.

I was practically the only one there. At six in the morning, the neatly arranged ranks of empty chairs and desks reminded me of one of those movies where some giant weapon or a disease causes all of humanity to disappear. Kind of creepy.

As usual, Steve the I.T. guy sat at his computer, monitoring call volume statistics and idling in a teleconference.

Steve was overweight, his stomach sagging over his pants, but he took care of himself, his hair and beard well groomed. He was a strange animal. For a brusque, silent type, the fact that he wore Star Wars shirts and occasionally showed up dressed in chain mail, like King Arthur on the way to a battle, made him kind of cool. If he wanted to do live action fantasy roleplaying on the weekends, more power to him.

I attempted communication, but he only responded with a grunt.

So, not one hundred percent cool.

Still puzzling about the stranger in the tux, I sneaked into the area where he'd been waving the clock around.

For the most part, nothing in the area looked like it had been touched. I saw nothing extraordinary about any of the desks or computers. In fact, nothing at all seemed amiss until I peeked into the manager's cubicle I'd seen the weirdo vanish into.

The first thing I saw when I stepped inside was a video recording of a large humanoid blue colored pig with dreadlocks, wandering around in a jungle.

I thought it was a movie, but then, as I squinted at the film, I noticed the distinct lack of action, music, or dramatic pacing, like I were watching live camera footage.

Bravo, I thought. Must be the DVD extras.

I listened to the audio on a pair of headphones near the monitor and heard a guy talking about a Na'vi.

And then I saw something I wished I hadn't.

In the background of the video, I could see another blue figure, this one carving a message on the side of a concrete wall. This is what it said:

My name is Jason Finch.

I am from Earth.

I do not belong here.

Please help me.

I stared at the screen in horror. What the hell was going on?

Was all that stuff I dreamed really real? Surely not! I didn't even remember that dream.

For starters, how would I even get to that place? Why did that blue thing think it was me?

But how could I explain the message?

I wrote it all off as an elaborate practical joke.

The video wasn't the only strange thing. Next to the computer, I found a device that didn't look like it belonged to any earthly computer. A strange tiny black triangular object marked with a curving scythe shaped symbol and a red flashing light. It looked like a prop from a science fiction movie. I stepped further inside the cubicle, reaching out to pick up the device.

"Hey!" a voice shouted. "What are you doing! Get out of there!"

I looked down and saw the top of a shiny bald head. It belonged to a squatty dwarf in button up dragon print shirt. Vincent.

Vincent was one of my favorite managers, simply because he was a dwarf. Just seeing him waddle around the office made me grin. I wanted to pick him up. I always had thought it a shame that I wasn't on his team.

Of course, grinning isn't the best thing to do when someone's pissed off at you. "Sorry," I stammered, fighting down the smile. "I..."

I jerked my hand back, stepping away from the desk.

"Shoo!" the man said, waving me away.

I quickly backed off, watching him jump up and throw his stomach over the desk, unplugging something from the computer. He stuck that something into his pocket.

His face turned a bright red when he noticed I hadn't moved. "Shouldn't you be logged into the phones already!"

"Right!" I retreated from the area.

This has to be a prank, I thought. Even that...toy on his desk. I wasn't sure why they went through all the trouble to trick me, of all people, but I figured they were making a TV show or something, and I was to be the butt of the joke.

I logged into the phone and computer, took calls for two hours.

"Why my phone off. Why my bill so high? I promise to pay you next Saturday. I didn't know my account was charged off against my credit." This is what the conversations consisted of.

The rows behind me filled up with coworkers. I noticed a coffee brown faced man in glasses, white shirt and tie, logging into the phone next to me.

Curtis.

Curtis was cool, but the way he talked to customers, I really couldn't figure out why they hadn't fired him. We're supposed to be getting payments for phone reactivations, not talking about sports, or preaching, or political scandals, but nobody said anything to him about it.

This time it was some sort of discussion about sexual misconduct and the NFL. I rolled my eyes and pretended I wasn't hearing all that.

I took my break, got a cup of coffee, returned to the phone.

Misapplied payment dispute. An argument about late fees. One payment. Lots of promises for payments.

The calls got suspended for training, so I flipped through a pointless instruction module designed that had no bearing on my job, then laid my head on my desk as I waited for everyone else to finish.

"Rough night?" said a voice behind me.

I groggily sat up, turning my chair to face the speaker. "I had insomnia."

"Take some Benadril," said a whiny sounding fat guy in the row behind me. "That works pretty good."

"Me, I take a shot of whiskey like this." Harry held up a couple pinched together fingers. "Mix it with orange juice or hot milk, and it puts me right out."

"What I do is get some hot juice or tea," said a voice to my right. "Take a cup of that and watch the Weather Channel for a few minutes, and I have no problem sleeping."

My two cubicle mates then got into a discussion about news stories. The topic changed to plans for the weekend. Harry said he got his truck fixed, and he was fishing at the lake, spurring a discussion about trophy catches.

I took my lunch and came back to find them still chewing the fat.

Suddenly a flashing light appeared on my company instant messenger.

Jolene.

"Log into meeting and see me in my office," it said.

I swallowed. What did I do wrong now?

With my stomach sinking, I set my phone to Meeting to stop the calls, then nervously crept into the office at the back of the call center.

The computer on the manager's desk displayed an image of me dangling from the roof ladder in my cotton briefs.

"Care to explain?"

The video only showed me. It didn't show the man in the suit. I wondered if I were really going crazy.

"I sleepwalk. But I've been seeking treatment."

Her expression was humorless. "Do you often sleep in this building?"

"Not...if I can help it. It's an early time to get up, so I often take naps in my car before the building opens."

I sighed and rubbed my face. "I'm sorry. It's a recurring problem. I'm taking meds, but there's not a whole lot else I can do about it."

"Funny you should say `recurring.'"

I swallowed. "What, you have more security footage?"

She responded by pulling out one of her desk drawers, dropping it on the counter with a noisy rattling bang.

I stared at its contents. It looked like a year's worth of handmade faux Indian artifacts.

"I believe these belong to you."

I paled. "Are you sure all those are mine?"

Jolene shrugged. "I don't know of anyone else who would prowl around a locked building in a loincloth and play Indian until the doors open."

I pushed the drawer towards her. "You can throw that stuff away. I don't want it."

"I believe not. It's evidence."

"What. You're going to sue me? I hate to break it to you, but I don't have enough money to make it worthwhile. Unless your aim is to send me to prison."

She gave me a look like she were planning to do that very thing. "The next time you sleepwalk and damage company property, we're deducting it from your paycheck."

"Fine. Show me where to sign."

And so I signed a waiver and returned to my desk.

I noticed a strange new face in the office, an athletic looking forty year old woman with curly brown hair and narrow angular features. The woman had on a white shirt and black slacks, and carried a clipboard full of papers.

She went down the rows, notating something or another.

I asked about her in the company instant message program, but I couldn't get an answer from anyone.

After a long delay, someone said that the woman was checking computer towers. They had to know which one went to which login ID, which seemed plausible, except she seemed to be looking more at our faces than our computers.

"Who is she?" I typed.

Another long pause.

"I think her name is Grace," said a fat guy in the row behind mine. The back of his chair faced me, but I could tell it was Max by the whiny voice. "I think she's a new manager."

"Grace Augustine," someone told me in a private message.

About ten minutes later, the `training' ended, and I was back to talking to customers about their bills.

I took my last break for the day. As I was standing around the break room, I noticed the `Grace' woman retrieving a Diet Coke from a vending machine.

"Mobmik!" she said to me. "Viravo poiagutewe?"

For reasons unclear to me, I found myself blurting words in a language I didn't understand, following it up with a confused "What?"

She only laughed and walked away.

I returned to my desk, too tired to fully comprehend what had just happened.

An hour later, I wished I had fixed another cup of coffee, as my head kept drooping forward as I handled the calls, getting accused of being drunk a few times. I stood up to combat the fatigue, and I managed to make it to 2:30 without seriously botching a call.

Everything seemed fine as I marched through the now crowded office and got into my car, but when I shifted into reverse, I heard a crunch.

Shifting back into my space, I got out to check the damage.

I had just backed into a dirty black Trans Am with a license plate reading "SNAKER." A string of little skulls the size of ping pong balls hung from the car's rearview, the skull motif carrying on through the seat and steering wheel covers.

I could see the handle of a gun poking out from beneath the passenger seat.

Uh-oh.

Not knowing who I was dealing with, I could easily imagine how this little exchange was going to play out.

Poorly.

I'd gained a huge dent in my rear bumper, but the car behind me looked no worse for wear.

I looked all around the other car, but it looked like I had only done damage to my rear fender. No noteworthy scratches, dent marks or any other glaringly obvious signs of impact.

I would have left a note, but I figured the owner would only exaggerate the repair of a tiny scratch, one that I could easily fix with a pen, to make it sound like I caved in his whole front end. I just drove home.

I lived in a white split level suburban home, a generic 1970's style Brady Bunch type thing identical to dozens of other homes on my block. Garage, a concrete stoop with an awning serving as the front porch. The paint was flaking around the garage, the railing around the front stair had rusted and broken off, and plants never fared well in our yard. The brick flower box held dirt and dead plants.

The sliding glass door on the back was stubborn, books and papers and piles of junk lay everywhere. Not bad enough for Hoarders: Buried Alive, but close.

As usual, my stepdad was out on the front lawn, practicing a karate kata. To the uninitiated, that's a dance you do at every belt level to show off your moves.

My stepdad...he came along a little later in my life, when I was already in middle school and didn't want to change my last name. He and my mom met because I got in a fight and mom didn't have the money to pay for karate school. Stepdad's a karate instructor.

Honestly, I don't enjoy karate. It's something I endure, and don't keep up with, much to Stepdad's annoyance.

I heard the ringer of his cel phone, the Mortal Kombat theme song. He picked it up from the stoop. "Action Martial arts, Jeff Packer speaking."

And then he got caught up in a long discussion about finances at the dojo. I went inside.

The interior was a mess. Mismatched furniture, clothes, trash and other odds and ends scattered all over the living room. Every time I tried to clean up, we always ended up missing a bill, the remote controls, or some other important thing, so I didn't bother as much as I used to.

I marched upstairs to my room to draw pictures of the strange monsters inhabiting my unconscious landscape, the strange blue characters, the plump friend, the cute female that despised me.

I was a bit annoyed that my drawings all tended to look like blue cat people, even when I tried to draw superheroes. My designs for sports cars, though, looked really interesting.

"Jason!" I heard Stepdad yelling a couple hours later. "Get your ass down here!"

I rushed outside and found him and my mother staring at the dent in my rear fender. "What did you do to the car?"

I explained the situation.

Seeing that the cat was already out of the bag... "Jeff, um...I was at work today, and I think I may have backed into someone's car when I was pulling out."

"Did you leave a note?"

"Well," I stammered. "No, I..."

"Hit and run is against the law, you know."

I swallowed. "The damage looks like it's all on my end."

"That's not what the court will say. It doesn't matter. You've got to at least leave a note...You got insurance, right?"

"It's all my fault," I said. "There's no point in making the rates higher. It's only cosmetic damage. It'll be fine."

"It doesn't matter. The other driver is going to look at the car, and he's going to ask questions. The longer you delay, the sooner he'll send the FBI to arrest you. You'd better leave a note pronto, and pray he won't press charges."

I shook my head. "There's no telling if he's still there. He might be working the same shift. I'll leave the note tomorrow."

"You'd better!"

He ordered me to do a hundred pushups, situps and mountain climbers.

On that note, my father grumpily marched back into the house.

That night after dinner I dreamed I was in the arms of that naked fat creature who sexually assaulted me in the previous dream. It took a lot of effort to wiggle out of her arms, but I eventually did.

At first, we lay intertwined in each other's arms, on fuzzy skins in a crude tent made of logs and animal hide.

The female let out loud animal snores, one meaty hand gripping tightly around the base of my tail, but I wrested it free of her grasp, sneaking out of the tipi.

Noting my manner of undress, I picked up a discarded breechcloth, cinching it around my waist.

All around me stood tipis illuminated by an immense bonfire in the middle of the encampment.

From my experience in past dreams, I knew better than to seek out contact with other...blue things. I'd be better off on my own, alone somewhere.

I crept into a jungle, staring at the strange looking flora.

I nearly tripped over a small, thinner version of the creature from the tipi.

"Where are you going, Qaddafwu?"

A cute little thing, half human feline face, dreadlocked hair all up in beads. You're too young to be wearing your hair up like that, I thought weirdly.

I knew, from previous dreams, that the child had not sprung from my loins. A tribesman named Nismuzah had fallen to his death during a hunt for shovel beaks. The kid's mother had just kinda latched onto me, because I had been Nismuzah's blood brother.

As cute as her kids were, I didn't want to be forced into a relationship just because of her, my blood brother, or whatever other forces kept putting me in Big Bertha's arms. This was a dream, after all.

Sure, there may have been a video of a blue thing saying it was Jason, in a place that kinda looked like this one, but then again, I'd seen a man in a black suit, and my car turning into an animal, so I chalked it all up as a dream or hallucination generated by a sleep deprived mind.

I put a finger to my lips. "Shh! I'm hunting a wabbit!"

The girl frowned at me. "What's a wabbit?"

I waved her away. "Be quiet. You'll scare it away!...I'll...show you one...when I get back."

I crept away from her, deeper into the jungle.

I'd had many dreams about this place, but it was always kind of trippy seeing glowing sea plants dancing around on dry land, or anemone that retreated when you walked past.

I waded through thick four and five foot tall clusters of weeds and brush, gazing up at something that resembled Jupiter in the night sky.

My bare feet stumbled over rocks and gravel. I winced, stopped to check the damage.

When I looked up, I saw a naked female figure strolling down the beach. I watched, open mouthed, as her shapely blue body, speckled with glowing dots, slowly waded into the water, feline tail making playful ripples in the surf. The spray clung to her hips, tracing glistening fingers around the curves of her rump.

When I leaned in to get a better look, my bare foot landed on something pointy and sharp, a jagged little anemone thing. I cried out in pain as its razor sharp yucca leaves stabbed me knife edged through the base of my foot and came out the other side.

I cursed, sat down on the gravel.

The female let out a cry of alarm. I thought for sure she would think me a creep, scream and tell someone, but when she noticed my pitiful state, she covered her mouth to hide a laugh. "Serves you right for spying on me."

"I...I..." I stammered.

She sucked in her breath when she saw my injury up close. "You stepped right on a losmeshi. Didn't your shaman teach you about such things?"

She clicked her teeth. "Come back to my tipi. I'll treat you with some cegfalla root before the poison sets in."

I swallowed. "Your...tipi?"

She rolled her yellow eyes, putting her hands on those sexy hips I kept admiring. The look on her face said, `Don't get any ideas.' "Are you really this stupid, or is this all an act?"

I glanced down at my feet. When I tried to pull out the plant fronds, it hurt so bad that I started crying. "I...think I'm really that stupid."

She smiled. It seemed she had warmed to me.

When she yanked parts of the thing out of my foot, I cried more. This made her grin openly now, and she sang me a beautiful little song that took my mind off the pain, even when she pulled the leaves completely out.

I didn't ask her name because this was just a dream. "That's pretty. What's it called?"

She waved her hand dismissively. "Oh, it's just the ritual song of Nuqtegza. It's sung by shamans and priestesses all over the planet. I'm surprised you don't recognize it."

I felt a little nervous about telling her the truth. You know, because it probably sounds crazy to an alien. "I...um, come from a...distant tribe."

"I believe you. You look like a Na'vi, but you have a very strange accent."

I thought she seemed a little impressed, but I still wasn't sure what she thought of me.

She led me to the water, washed out the injured area. "What do your people sing?"

With a smirk, I muttered, "Um...a lop bop a beebop a wop bam boom, tutti fruitti."

She giggled. "Is that how you sing?"

I reddened. "Okay, fine."

Clearing my throat, I actually sang.

I know lots of songs, but I know all the words to the dumbest, least romantic ones. That's why I serenaded her with Eat It by Weird Al Yankovic, instead of the actual Michael Jackson song.

"Do the words to your song have a special significance?"

I laughed. "It's a song about children who don't eat their mother's cooking."

The humorous intent got lost in translation. "Will you sing this song to your children when...you have them?"

People make Freudian slips all the time, but that doesn't always mean they like you...or that you should blow it by being too forward. "Uh, maybe?"

"I think you should."

My mouth suddenly felt dry. I had no words.

Since my wound had been all cleaned up by now, she tugged my hand. "C'mon. You need medicine."

I glanced at the beach, where her (presumably) buckskin clothing lay. "Shouldn't you...uh...get dressed?"

"I thought you wanted me to treat your wounds. You're going to have a problem if you don't get medicine right away."

No disagreement there! I thought. "...Thank you. I realize this is...awkward for you."

"Not really."

The female was an artist, too. She had a very pretty...pterodactyl design painted on her tent skins. The artistry impressed me enough to take my mind off my bleeding foot.

I complimented her, but she said it was nothing, so I complimented her some more.

She took me in the place. Spartan as usual, just some fuzzy skins and a trunk, from which she produced a bunch of herbs and strips of textiles to treat my foot with.

"I never got your name, stranger," she said, leaning close to me.

If I told her my alien alter ego's name, she would have connected me with...that other tribe, and the fat chick, so I told her my real one.

"`Jason.' That's very unusual."

"Not where I come from. So..."

I, um, had a good look at her while she poured the ointment and everything. "You're very pretty," I stammered.

She chuckled, tied a strip of cloth around my wound.

The female glanced at my breechcloth. "I can tell you like what you see."

I blushed. "I'm really sorry. I shouldn't have been spying."

She giggled through her nose. "It's okay. You've been punished."

I looked into her eyes. "Hey,um...are you single?"

She gave me a dumb look. "No. I am with my tribe."

"No, I mean, do you have a boyfriend?"

Another stupid look. "There are other boys in my tribe, including my brother. I consider them friends."

I smacked my face.

"Are you trying to ask if I had sex with anyone?"

I swallowed, giving her a nod.

"No. You?"

I reddened. "I..."

Honestly, other than in my dreams, I was a virgin, so... "No."

I felt warmth rushing to my face. "So, um...I know, we uh, should probably hang out or something for awhile-"

She rolled me onto the pile of skins, kissing me passionately as she rubbed her body against me. The loincloth came off.

A moment later, a plump little female face poked in between the tent flaps, beaded braids clacking noisily. "Daddy, is she a wabbit?"