Kermit's mother was wiping tears from her eyes when she knocked on his door. He didn't respond. Kermit Kinnard was lying on the floor staring up at the white ceiling of his room. He was trying to discover the point at which nothing became something and something became everything. He thought of Jansen and wondered where he was. Then he thought of Leslie and wondered if she had made it Chicago. It was at that moment when his mother opened the door. She did so slowly. Kermit still didn't respond.

"Kermit?" she choked out in a whisper.

"Yes, Mom," he said still gazing at the emptiness above him. His mother had entered into his peripheral vision. Still, his focus did not waver.

"Are you okay?"

"Yes, Mom. I'm fine Mom." His tone was empty.

"That's good," his mother said putting a hand to her mouth. She bit the knuckle of her thumb. The pain made it easier for her to avoid succumbing to her welling emotions.

"Listen to me, Kermit."

"I am, Mom."

Suddenly she was furious.

"No! Look at me!" she screamed. Honestly, She would rather be angry than sad.

Kermit closed his eyes and rolled his head. When he opened them again, they were fixed upon his mother.

"Kermit…" she said as tears started penetrate through her features. "Kermit, something happened."

Kermit's dreamy gaze faded away. He eyes became wide, his nose flared, and his eyebrows contorted into a frown. He slowly stood keeping his eyes on his mother the entire time.

"Tell me," he said feeling the adrenaline rise through his body.

"Chicago… your friend Leslie… no one knows what's going on," she forced out each word with so much labor that it made her weak.

"What…?" Kermit said approaching her, "WHAT?!! TELL ME!!"

"Television…" she said with her tears coming through faster, "Look at the television…"

Kermit didn't hesitate. He bolted down a flight of steps to the living room as quickly as he could. His mother followed, walking step by step at a grim pace.

She didn't cry for her own pain. She cried for Kermit. She knew that Leslie—that all of his friends—were special to him, and for one to be taken away from him by something so unreal was absolutely tragic. It wasn't just tragic: it was, by her own supposedly universal calculations, wrong. Why did this happen? She asked. Why?

By the time she got down to the living room Kermit was getting situated to leave the house. His keys and a cellular phone were sitting on a desk in front of him as he hastily threw on his sneakers.

Before she could ask, Kermit said, "I'm going to Leslie's house. I already tried calling her directly. But she isn't too big on phones, so I don't know. In the worst case… well, I don't want to think about that right now. I just need to go. Her parents will know more than anyone else."

Kermit's mother looked at the television. It was off.

"Did you watch it? Did you see what happened?" she asked.

"No," he said grabbing the items from the desk and scanning around the room to make sure he was taking everything of relevance. "I don't need to."

"But—"

"Mom," Kermit interrupted giving her a brief hug. "I'll find out when I get there. That's that."

He was out the door before she could say a thing.

Now, as he ran to that house, Kermit Kinnard was contemplating something that Jansen had told him a long time ago. As it turns out, he knew the exact reason for which his mother was shedding tears. He knew that her tears were for the pain and the fear that was set to grip him tightly as soon as he saw whatever he was going to see on the television. But, even so, he felt a pang of resentment toward his mother. For all of the years that he was sent to those psychiatric clinics, she never even once stopped to consider the pain that he felt when he was telling the truth and everyone else, including her, believed him to be a liar. For that reason, he believed his mother's sadness to be naïve and disrespecting. But that wasn't it.

One day Kermit had come home from school after miserably failing a test for which he was woefully unprepared, and he couldn't help but complain to Jansen about how unfair it was and how the teacher had snuck material in that did not seem relevant.

"I hate this," Kermit had said to Jansen, "Why do I have to have that teacher? It just sucks! Why me?"

Jansen just laughed.

"W- Why are you laughing?! I'm being serious!" Kermit said infuriated.

"I know…" Jansen whimpered through his laughter, "that's why it's so hilarious!"

Kermit turned his back to Jansen and crashed down onto his bed.

"You're just being a jerk," he said into his sheets.

"Kermit… it's not like that," Jansen said finally cooling down.

"No-No. By all means, laugh it up!" Kermit snapped back. "I'll just lie here and figure out what I'll do next if I can concentrate over your cackling."

"There. That's an idea I can live with," Jansen said definitively.

Kermit sighed. "What are you talking about?"

Jansen stood and stretched his legs.

"Kermit," he said, "for the longest time humans have amazed me for many things. But the thing that gets me the most is the way you all perceive everything that's going on around you."

"Like how?" Kermit asked not truly interested.

Jansen didn't care. "So many of you think you're involved in some 'master plan' of the universe, and things happen to you because you have been handpicked. It's like every human lives on a stage and they all act out and perform this elaborate play for this unknown audience member with a huge magnifying glass in their hand. Now, I'm not saying this is bad, but sometimes people get so caught up in their performance that they forget what they are and that they have a level of control over what happens around them. Instead of thinking about what they can do, they think about why they are in the middle of it… Instead of thinking about how things are right, they only think about how they are wrong. So you shouldn't just randomly complain and ask why you are you. Kermit Kinnard is Kermit Kinnard. Do what you have to do."

A moment of silence elapsed in which Jansen went over into a corner of the room and started consider some calculations for his next adventure.

"Jansen?" Kermit asked with his face still in the sheets.

"Yo."

"Who is the audience member with the magnifying glass?" Kermit turned his body to face Jansen.

Jansen smiled apprehensively.

"That depends," he said raising his eyebrows, "But you little insects do everything in your power to entertain that person whether he's real or not."

Kermit stared at Jansen and laughed.

"Whatever," he concluded.

Kermit quickened his pace to Leslie's home. He thought back to his mother again. He imagined her staring at the television bawling whenever new information came out.

"I understand, Mom," he said to himself, "but it's time for you to stop asking those questions. Maybe you should just ask yourself who I am. Maybe then you could believe in me and trust that Jansen is real."

Kermit sighed. "It's time for you to stop performing. I'll bet a lot of people think they're at center stage right now anyway. Too many."

Coincidentally or not, millions of families and friends where asking why it had happened. Why was Chicago gone? Why them? Why us? Even the ones who had managed to barely escape by unknowingly driving away at the last minute or by catching an early plane or by some freak occurrence wondered why? Why was I saved? They asked.

And it wasn't necessarily the wrong way to be. After all, it was practically the human nature of a tragedy to provide one thing and one thing alone:

Entertainment.