Chapter 2
There's a lady who's sure
All that glitters is gold
And she's buying a stairway to heaven
Led Zeppelin; Stairway To Heaven
A high pitched yelling woke him up the next morning. Opening his eyes, he looked around in bewilderment. Then he remembered what had happened and where he was. He sat up wincing at the stiffness in his back and looked for the source of the noise. An old woman was standing next to the nearest garbage can. She was glaring at him, pointing her finger and yelling nonsense.
'No, not nonsense. German,' he thought and sighed.
"Dear Lady", he said, getting up, "I have no intention of violating your private living space nor blowing up your garbage cans - although that certainly would be fun. I just needed a place to sleep and your garbage can shelter was the first option to pop up. I do apologize that it upset you, and I can assure you, I won't do it again. Now if you would please excuse me."
He tried to slide past the woman who had been standing there, listening with an uncomprehending expression on her face. Now her eyes widened in shock and she stumbled backwards away from him, yelling and screetching again.
"Komm mir nicht zu nahe du dreckiger Penner! Schmarotzer! Eine alte Frau anzugreifen! Ich werd die Polizei rufen, das versprech ich dir! Und wenn die dann erst das Phantombild haben..."
Pressing his lips together in annoyance he passed her by and headed toward the street, the woman still screaming behind him.
'What a wake up call', he thought wryly. 'Beats even the red alert sirens.'
But he knew that he had to get out of there. The woman had seemed pissed enough to call some kind of security or police or whoever's job it was to convict winos and hobos here in this time. And even if she wouldn't do that somebody had surely heard the noise and he really didn't want to answer any questions right now.
He didn't know what he was going to do now though. Yesterday his priority had first been to get away from Frank and friends, and fast, and then to get at least oriented enough to think about what to do next. Now the only assignment he could think of was finding a map or anything like that since he had no intention of reexperiencing the events of yesterday night. But shortly a different problem made itself noticed by a loud grumbling in his stomach. He hadn't eaten anything for at least fourteen hours, and he was getting very hungry by now.
'Well', he thought, 'so it seems I have to find some kind of information centre in this city. They should have maps, and maybe I can find out there if I can get something to eat around here.'
Then something else came to his mind: money was still very important in this time, and he didn't have any of that. Well, of couse he had an account somewhere in 2151, but he didn't think he would get far if he tried to pay with credits here. And he couldn't get them anyway. That left him broke, homeless and lost in a country where he coudn't even communicate properly with the inhabitants. A sudden jolt of homesickness went through him, and he tried to push the thought aside.
'You should get acustomed to the thought,' he told himself. 'You will be in this situation for quite some time, unless mankind developes a time travel method in the near future, and there's no information about that in the history books of 2151. Come to think of it, how did I get here anyway?'
He stopped dead in his tracks. How had he come here? Strange enough, he hadn't given it one thought since his memory had come back, but as he now thought about it, he couldn't remember.
'No, not again!' he thought unnerved. 'This is getting really old!'
Obviously his memory hadn't been restored as completely as he had thought. But as he tried to remember now, he didn't even feel a wall, or the mental equivalent, in his mind like before. The memories just - weren't there. Squeezing his eyes shut, he searched his mind frantically, but the only result he got was the full return of the headache that had never really left him since he had landed here. Furious, he turned and rammed his fist against the wall of the house he was standing next to. It didn't give way, though, and a jolt of pain raced up his arm.
"Bloody hell!" he yelled, staring at his scraped knuckles. Then he closed his eyes and counted slowly to ten.
'Temper, Malcolm,' he thought. 'It won't do any good if you break your fngers beating up houses. Besides, you start acting like Trip.'
Smiling a sad half-smile he turned and began walking, starting his search for an information centre.
-###-
Seating herself on her place behind the counter, Petra sighed deeply. It was ten am on a Friday morning, and she wished she hadn't changed shift with her collegue Sonja. Today was one of those days. First her alarm clock had had a malfunction and she had gotten up half an hour later than usual. Then she had spilled her morning coffee over her favourite dress, ruining it, and, by the way, burning her thighs (not too bad though, the coffee hadn't been very hot due to the fact that her microwave didn't work right since her ex had repaired it three weeks ago). Then she had set off for work, and on the bus she had discovered that she had obviously forgotten to take her key. That had been the point when she - normally a steady optimist - had decided that this obviously *was* one of those days. And now, after having been set to a rush by her alarm clock, having been burned by her coffee and having been locked out of her own house by her forgetfulness - and all that in only two hours - she was facing four hours full of questions like 'Oh, excuse me, but could you tell me where the next washroom is, my little son has peed his pants', to which she couldn't answer, 'Oh my God Lady he's at least seven, are you going to change him till he's twenty?' but had to remain friendly and helpful and had to offer the poor mother the private staff's bathroom so her son could make an awful mess and throw toilet paper everywhere.
'Ah I hate working in a tourist information center! Why did I ever apply for this job? Well, money's money.'
Sighing, she turned to the computer to start this day's work when the door opened and a man came in. On first look he seemed to be a mechanic of some sort because he wore some kind of blue overall like that of a car mechanic, but if you looked more closely, it was obvious that this wasn't the case. The overall was a darker blue, almost purple, and wasn't plain like the normal one's. It had zippers and pockets everywhere and red stripes at the shoulderparts and a weird looking sign on the left sleeve. The sign was round and displayed some kind of...well it looked like a saucer with two sticks sticking out at the bottom.
The guy himself was small - 'He can't be taller than me' was her first thought - had dark, fairly short hair and looked ill. He was thin, dark circles displayed under his eyes, he hadn't shaved in at least three days - and he smelled. It wasn't the sharp smell of the hobos that came in from time to time, but it was close. She sighed inwardly.
"Kann ich Ihnen helfen?" she asked with the friendliest smile she could muster.
He blinked at her."Um...do you speak English?" he asked.
'Oh great, that was obvious. An English-speaking hobo as my first customer. I love this job.'
"Yes I do", she said, smiling brightly."Can I help you?"
"Do you have any kind of city map?"
"City map?" She wouldn't have been surprised by a question for money or the location of a shelter for homeless people. But a city map? That was weird. "Yes", she said quickly as she saw the guy watching her intently. "Yes, of course we do. What kind would you like to have?"
"Um...one with this part of the city on it."
She smiled inwardly. He was kind of cute - if he'd get cleaned up.
"So you want one of old town."
He looked confused. "I just want a map of this city with this part on it."
"Okay, no problem. Just a minute." She dug under the counter for the map he had asked for. "Do you want the small one for five or the bigger one for seven euros?" she asked, showing him the two different maps. But he didn't even look at them. He had his eyes closed, and a desperate expression showed on his face. First she didn't know what the problem was, but then she realized that a guy looking like him probably couldn't even pay one euro for a map, let alone five. She sighed silently.
"Or do you want the free leaflet about the city? There's a small map included, although it is not very detailed."
He opened his eyes, and a weary smile appeared on his face. "That would be great. Thank you very much."
"No problem", she said and snatched one of the leaflets out of the holder next to her. When she had given it to him he murmured another thank you and turned to go. After two steps he stopped though, and looked at her once more.
"Could you tell me if there's a public restroom somewhere around here?"
'Oh I knew it!' she thought. 'Today how could it be different!' But she kept her smile on her face and said:
"Well, there is one at the market place, but that is about fifteen minutes away from here. If you want to, you could use the one we got here."
"You're too kind", he said, again smiling his little smile.
"It's right back there", she said and pointed to an unlabeled door in the back of the room.
"Thank you very much", he said and disappeared through the door.
-###-
As soon as he was in the privacy of the bathroom Malcolm closed his eyes and slid down the wall to the floor. His head hurt like it never had before - not even after his shore leave on Antares IV, and that time he had thought he wouldn't survive the way to sickbay. Cradling his head in his arms, he slowly began to rock himself - back and forth, back and forth. The soothing motion made the pain seem farther away if not bearable, and it made him forget the cramps in his empty stomach.
After he had decided to go looking for an information centre he had been running around in the morning-empty streets for two hours before he saw a first sign that suggested that this city had more than backyards and old houses. He had come to a big sqare with an impressive gothic church and some stores. There on that sqare he had first seen the sign he had been following since then: the capital latin letter I in a circle; white on dark blue background. Although he hadn't known for sure he had assumed that it stood for Information. He had hoped it stood for it because at that point, his headache had already been considerable. It had been increasing ever since he had tried to force his mind to remember the events that had gotten him here, and the lack of food and water hadn't been helping. By the time he had seen the entrance sign that announced 'Tourist Information Centre' in German, Spanish, French and English he hadn't been sure if he was still walking straight. Inside the overhead light had seemed much too bright, and even though he thought he had managed his part of the dialogue pretty well, he still thought he had spooked the young woman at the counter.
'No bloody miracle', he thought hazyly. 'I must look like one of the zombies from 'The night of the living dead'. I'd spook myself.'
Thinking of the woman he realized that he coudn't sit there forever, as much as he wanted to. She would get suspicious if he was in here too long. He tried to get up, taking a hold at the sink, but halfway up, the world started to blur. 'Don't you dare faint!' he told himself. 'You can do that later when you're on your own!' But his body, weakened by lack of sleep, food and water, decided to ignore his advice and, slumping back onto the floor, he passed out.
-###-
'That guy is defenitely very strange', Petra thought as she returned to her work on the computer. 'Why, in God's name, would he want a city map, if he didn't have any money? For a hobo it doesn't matter where in town he hangs around, and that guy seemed to be at least on an early hobo-stage. Although he didn't look like an alcoholic, and, considering it, he didn't seem drunk either. A little...confused, maybe, but not drunk. And he wasn't in bad shape. He did looked somehow ill and definitely dirty, but after a shower and a good night's sleep...Maybe he wasn't a hobo at all. After all, did you ever before think Oh that guy could look cute if he'd take a shower when you saw a hobo? Maybe...maybe he's an escaped prisoner or something like that.'
At that thought she looked up, giving the bathroom door a careful look. Yes, maybe that was what he was. It seemed to fit: no money, strange clothing, shabby appearance, and now that she thought about it, there had been some kind of a haunted look in his eyes.
'In his blue-grey eyes', she thought. Then she laughed at her sillyness. That was something her ex had hated about her: she was a helpless romantic. She loved those kinds of movies where the suspect was actually the victim. She loved it to be allowed to feel sorry for the bad guy...the one that is hunted down and mostly killed in the end. And everytime when there's a happy ending for the bad guy, she was happy - and her ex who had been the extreme opposite, totally rational and realistic, had always laughed at her. And now, as she considered that the guy in the staff's bathroom really was an escaped prisoner, it didn't frighten her, it excited her.
'And what if that guy isn't one of those bad guys who turn good but a real bad guy? A mass murderer of some kind? Thought about that, Petra?' a voice in her head said.
"Stop that, you silly girl." she told herself. "That guy in there is *not* an escaped prisoner but a hobo...well maybe not a hobo, but no escaped prisoner either."
'And, by the way, why is he taking so long,' she wondered, looking at the clock on the computer screen. 'He's been in there for at least twenty minutes now. That's not normal. Especially not for a guy.'
'Maybe he gets cleaned up' the voice in her head spoke. 'He *was* pretty dirty.'
"Yeah, probably. I'll give him five more minutes, then I'll check on him." she murmured to herself, returning to her work. But she couldn't concentrate. There was no sound coming from the bathroom. Not even the tab was running and she knew you could hear that out here because her colleague always brushed her teeth in there after lunch break. After looking up for the fifth time she let out a long sigh and got up. Crossing the room, she called:
"Hey, mister, are you okay?"
Getting no answer, she swallowed and knocked on the door.
"Are you still in there?"
No answer. A feeling developed in her stomach, like the tell-tale love-butterflys but without the pleasant part. She swallowed again and slowly tried to open the door. It wasn't locked, but after half a meter it hit on something. Peeking through the crack, she let out a small cry. The guy in the strange jumpsuit was laying slumped on the floor, obviously unconscious. Slipping through the small opening she knelt down beside him and turned him around. His eyes were closed, and now, looking at him close-up, she realized he really looked pretty ill.
'Oh my God what do I do now?' she thought frantically. 'Water. You can wake people up with water.'
She dug pack of Kleenix from her pants pocket, soaked them in the sink and passed the dripping rags over his forehead and cheeks.
"Come on, mister, wake up, I don't need any customer laying on the floor of the staff's bathroom, it's only more trouble and I had enough of that today, come on..."
Suddenly his eyes jerked open and he gasped. Scrambling away frantically, he reached to rub the water out of his eyes. Then he blinked several times, giving her a confused look.
"What...where does the water come from?" he finally asked with a raspy voice.
"Well, you had obviously fainted, and I just tried to wake you up. I'm sorry if I got any in your eyes, but you got me pretty scared, you know." she said apologetically. Letting out a sigh, the guy leaned back against the wall.
"Thank you" he said. "I...haven't eaten anything, so maybe that was why..."
"Do you want me to get you to the hospital?" she asked. He still seemed a little out of it.
"No thanks. I'm fine, I don't need to go to sickbay."
"Sickbay?" she asked, confused. He looked at her, blinking.
"Umm, the hospital, I mean."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes" he said with emphasis and got up. As soon as he took his hand from the wall, he started swaying on his feet, and she scrambled to her feet to catch him before he fell.
"Do you want to sit down?" she asked."We have a couch in the backroom."
He looked at her, and smiling slightly he nodded."That would be a good idea, I think."
-###-
"Well, and now he's sleeping on the couch in the back room." finished Petra her report of the events of this morning. Her collegue and friend Sonja had listened intensely and exclaimed the appropriate ahs and ohs and oh my gods. Now she looked at Petra wide-eyed and, after a short moment of silence asked: "Why didn't you call the police? Or at least a doctor? I mean, he comes in, creeps you out and then faints in the bathroom. I would have called *someone*."
"I don't know. He didn't seem threatening, you know. Yes, he was kind of creepy, coming in here looking like something dead and asking for a city map, of all things. But see, he didn't try anything. When I showed him the maps he didn't even try to grab one and run for it, so I figured he couldn't be too bad."
"Well, if he can't even shit without fainting I don't think he could have outrun you. And he probably knew that, too, so that doesn't proof anything."
"I know that, too...but he didn't seem like a bad guy. He seemed like...something had gone really wrong for him and he was trying to pick up the pieces."
"Oh, you looked at him and figured:'well, dark circles under his eyes, strange mechanic's overall, faints in the bathroom...that guy has some big problems, but it's not his fault, he's just a poor victim of fate'. I am sorry but this sounds too much like Hollywood to be real. I think you should have called someone...you could have called me, at least, I had to come here anyway."
"Well, I didn't. But you got your share of information, so why are you complaining?"
"It's not about information!" Sonja exclaimed. "What if he's an escaped patient from a mental hospital?"
Petra started to giggle:"Watch out", she said in a dramatic voice, "cause there are...*wackos* out there!"
Sonja started laughing as well. "It *could* be after all!"
"Yeah, and I *could* be a secret agent of the KGB. After all, what do you really know about me?"
"You're west-european. That's not very KGB - like. And the KGB doesn't exist anymore anyway."
"How do you know?" Petra intoned in a voice even more dramatic, then she spoiled the effect as she burst out laughing. Sonja joined in. After some giggling they got themselves under control and returned to work.
"Your work day's over. Why are you staying anyway?" Sonja asked after some minutes.
"What do you think? I mean, I can hardly just go home and leave that poor guy with you. For all I know you probably would bring him straight to the next hospital and tell them to lock him into the mental ward. I can't do that to him."
"I thought you thought he was a hobo when he first came in. But you talk about him as if you plan him to be your next Jonas."
By the metioning of her ex Petra rolled her eyes. She swung her chair around so she could face Sonja and said, stressing the words: "First of all, Jonas has blond curly hair, that guy has black straight hair; second, Jonas has brown eyes, this guy has blue-grey ones and third Jonas is an asshole and that guy..."
"...is a wacko?" Sonja suggested dryly.
"No. Well, I don't know what he is, but I know that he's been asleep for over four hours now. I think I'll check on him and make sure he didn't die." Looking at her friend's interested gaze she added: "Yes, you *can* come with me."
There's a lady who's sure
All that glitters is gold
And she's buying a stairway to heaven
Led Zeppelin; Stairway To Heaven
A high pitched yelling woke him up the next morning. Opening his eyes, he looked around in bewilderment. Then he remembered what had happened and where he was. He sat up wincing at the stiffness in his back and looked for the source of the noise. An old woman was standing next to the nearest garbage can. She was glaring at him, pointing her finger and yelling nonsense.
'No, not nonsense. German,' he thought and sighed.
"Dear Lady", he said, getting up, "I have no intention of violating your private living space nor blowing up your garbage cans - although that certainly would be fun. I just needed a place to sleep and your garbage can shelter was the first option to pop up. I do apologize that it upset you, and I can assure you, I won't do it again. Now if you would please excuse me."
He tried to slide past the woman who had been standing there, listening with an uncomprehending expression on her face. Now her eyes widened in shock and she stumbled backwards away from him, yelling and screetching again.
"Komm mir nicht zu nahe du dreckiger Penner! Schmarotzer! Eine alte Frau anzugreifen! Ich werd die Polizei rufen, das versprech ich dir! Und wenn die dann erst das Phantombild haben..."
Pressing his lips together in annoyance he passed her by and headed toward the street, the woman still screaming behind him.
'What a wake up call', he thought wryly. 'Beats even the red alert sirens.'
But he knew that he had to get out of there. The woman had seemed pissed enough to call some kind of security or police or whoever's job it was to convict winos and hobos here in this time. And even if she wouldn't do that somebody had surely heard the noise and he really didn't want to answer any questions right now.
He didn't know what he was going to do now though. Yesterday his priority had first been to get away from Frank and friends, and fast, and then to get at least oriented enough to think about what to do next. Now the only assignment he could think of was finding a map or anything like that since he had no intention of reexperiencing the events of yesterday night. But shortly a different problem made itself noticed by a loud grumbling in his stomach. He hadn't eaten anything for at least fourteen hours, and he was getting very hungry by now.
'Well', he thought, 'so it seems I have to find some kind of information centre in this city. They should have maps, and maybe I can find out there if I can get something to eat around here.'
Then something else came to his mind: money was still very important in this time, and he didn't have any of that. Well, of couse he had an account somewhere in 2151, but he didn't think he would get far if he tried to pay with credits here. And he couldn't get them anyway. That left him broke, homeless and lost in a country where he coudn't even communicate properly with the inhabitants. A sudden jolt of homesickness went through him, and he tried to push the thought aside.
'You should get acustomed to the thought,' he told himself. 'You will be in this situation for quite some time, unless mankind developes a time travel method in the near future, and there's no information about that in the history books of 2151. Come to think of it, how did I get here anyway?'
He stopped dead in his tracks. How had he come here? Strange enough, he hadn't given it one thought since his memory had come back, but as he now thought about it, he couldn't remember.
'No, not again!' he thought unnerved. 'This is getting really old!'
Obviously his memory hadn't been restored as completely as he had thought. But as he tried to remember now, he didn't even feel a wall, or the mental equivalent, in his mind like before. The memories just - weren't there. Squeezing his eyes shut, he searched his mind frantically, but the only result he got was the full return of the headache that had never really left him since he had landed here. Furious, he turned and rammed his fist against the wall of the house he was standing next to. It didn't give way, though, and a jolt of pain raced up his arm.
"Bloody hell!" he yelled, staring at his scraped knuckles. Then he closed his eyes and counted slowly to ten.
'Temper, Malcolm,' he thought. 'It won't do any good if you break your fngers beating up houses. Besides, you start acting like Trip.'
Smiling a sad half-smile he turned and began walking, starting his search for an information centre.
-###-
Seating herself on her place behind the counter, Petra sighed deeply. It was ten am on a Friday morning, and she wished she hadn't changed shift with her collegue Sonja. Today was one of those days. First her alarm clock had had a malfunction and she had gotten up half an hour later than usual. Then she had spilled her morning coffee over her favourite dress, ruining it, and, by the way, burning her thighs (not too bad though, the coffee hadn't been very hot due to the fact that her microwave didn't work right since her ex had repaired it three weeks ago). Then she had set off for work, and on the bus she had discovered that she had obviously forgotten to take her key. That had been the point when she - normally a steady optimist - had decided that this obviously *was* one of those days. And now, after having been set to a rush by her alarm clock, having been burned by her coffee and having been locked out of her own house by her forgetfulness - and all that in only two hours - she was facing four hours full of questions like 'Oh, excuse me, but could you tell me where the next washroom is, my little son has peed his pants', to which she couldn't answer, 'Oh my God Lady he's at least seven, are you going to change him till he's twenty?' but had to remain friendly and helpful and had to offer the poor mother the private staff's bathroom so her son could make an awful mess and throw toilet paper everywhere.
'Ah I hate working in a tourist information center! Why did I ever apply for this job? Well, money's money.'
Sighing, she turned to the computer to start this day's work when the door opened and a man came in. On first look he seemed to be a mechanic of some sort because he wore some kind of blue overall like that of a car mechanic, but if you looked more closely, it was obvious that this wasn't the case. The overall was a darker blue, almost purple, and wasn't plain like the normal one's. It had zippers and pockets everywhere and red stripes at the shoulderparts and a weird looking sign on the left sleeve. The sign was round and displayed some kind of...well it looked like a saucer with two sticks sticking out at the bottom.
The guy himself was small - 'He can't be taller than me' was her first thought - had dark, fairly short hair and looked ill. He was thin, dark circles displayed under his eyes, he hadn't shaved in at least three days - and he smelled. It wasn't the sharp smell of the hobos that came in from time to time, but it was close. She sighed inwardly.
"Kann ich Ihnen helfen?" she asked with the friendliest smile she could muster.
He blinked at her."Um...do you speak English?" he asked.
'Oh great, that was obvious. An English-speaking hobo as my first customer. I love this job.'
"Yes I do", she said, smiling brightly."Can I help you?"
"Do you have any kind of city map?"
"City map?" She wouldn't have been surprised by a question for money or the location of a shelter for homeless people. But a city map? That was weird. "Yes", she said quickly as she saw the guy watching her intently. "Yes, of course we do. What kind would you like to have?"
"Um...one with this part of the city on it."
She smiled inwardly. He was kind of cute - if he'd get cleaned up.
"So you want one of old town."
He looked confused. "I just want a map of this city with this part on it."
"Okay, no problem. Just a minute." She dug under the counter for the map he had asked for. "Do you want the small one for five or the bigger one for seven euros?" she asked, showing him the two different maps. But he didn't even look at them. He had his eyes closed, and a desperate expression showed on his face. First she didn't know what the problem was, but then she realized that a guy looking like him probably couldn't even pay one euro for a map, let alone five. She sighed silently.
"Or do you want the free leaflet about the city? There's a small map included, although it is not very detailed."
He opened his eyes, and a weary smile appeared on his face. "That would be great. Thank you very much."
"No problem", she said and snatched one of the leaflets out of the holder next to her. When she had given it to him he murmured another thank you and turned to go. After two steps he stopped though, and looked at her once more.
"Could you tell me if there's a public restroom somewhere around here?"
'Oh I knew it!' she thought. 'Today how could it be different!' But she kept her smile on her face and said:
"Well, there is one at the market place, but that is about fifteen minutes away from here. If you want to, you could use the one we got here."
"You're too kind", he said, again smiling his little smile.
"It's right back there", she said and pointed to an unlabeled door in the back of the room.
"Thank you very much", he said and disappeared through the door.
-###-
As soon as he was in the privacy of the bathroom Malcolm closed his eyes and slid down the wall to the floor. His head hurt like it never had before - not even after his shore leave on Antares IV, and that time he had thought he wouldn't survive the way to sickbay. Cradling his head in his arms, he slowly began to rock himself - back and forth, back and forth. The soothing motion made the pain seem farther away if not bearable, and it made him forget the cramps in his empty stomach.
After he had decided to go looking for an information centre he had been running around in the morning-empty streets for two hours before he saw a first sign that suggested that this city had more than backyards and old houses. He had come to a big sqare with an impressive gothic church and some stores. There on that sqare he had first seen the sign he had been following since then: the capital latin letter I in a circle; white on dark blue background. Although he hadn't known for sure he had assumed that it stood for Information. He had hoped it stood for it because at that point, his headache had already been considerable. It had been increasing ever since he had tried to force his mind to remember the events that had gotten him here, and the lack of food and water hadn't been helping. By the time he had seen the entrance sign that announced 'Tourist Information Centre' in German, Spanish, French and English he hadn't been sure if he was still walking straight. Inside the overhead light had seemed much too bright, and even though he thought he had managed his part of the dialogue pretty well, he still thought he had spooked the young woman at the counter.
'No bloody miracle', he thought hazyly. 'I must look like one of the zombies from 'The night of the living dead'. I'd spook myself.'
Thinking of the woman he realized that he coudn't sit there forever, as much as he wanted to. She would get suspicious if he was in here too long. He tried to get up, taking a hold at the sink, but halfway up, the world started to blur. 'Don't you dare faint!' he told himself. 'You can do that later when you're on your own!' But his body, weakened by lack of sleep, food and water, decided to ignore his advice and, slumping back onto the floor, he passed out.
-###-
'That guy is defenitely very strange', Petra thought as she returned to her work on the computer. 'Why, in God's name, would he want a city map, if he didn't have any money? For a hobo it doesn't matter where in town he hangs around, and that guy seemed to be at least on an early hobo-stage. Although he didn't look like an alcoholic, and, considering it, he didn't seem drunk either. A little...confused, maybe, but not drunk. And he wasn't in bad shape. He did looked somehow ill and definitely dirty, but after a shower and a good night's sleep...Maybe he wasn't a hobo at all. After all, did you ever before think Oh that guy could look cute if he'd take a shower when you saw a hobo? Maybe...maybe he's an escaped prisoner or something like that.'
At that thought she looked up, giving the bathroom door a careful look. Yes, maybe that was what he was. It seemed to fit: no money, strange clothing, shabby appearance, and now that she thought about it, there had been some kind of a haunted look in his eyes.
'In his blue-grey eyes', she thought. Then she laughed at her sillyness. That was something her ex had hated about her: she was a helpless romantic. She loved those kinds of movies where the suspect was actually the victim. She loved it to be allowed to feel sorry for the bad guy...the one that is hunted down and mostly killed in the end. And everytime when there's a happy ending for the bad guy, she was happy - and her ex who had been the extreme opposite, totally rational and realistic, had always laughed at her. And now, as she considered that the guy in the staff's bathroom really was an escaped prisoner, it didn't frighten her, it excited her.
'And what if that guy isn't one of those bad guys who turn good but a real bad guy? A mass murderer of some kind? Thought about that, Petra?' a voice in her head said.
"Stop that, you silly girl." she told herself. "That guy in there is *not* an escaped prisoner but a hobo...well maybe not a hobo, but no escaped prisoner either."
'And, by the way, why is he taking so long,' she wondered, looking at the clock on the computer screen. 'He's been in there for at least twenty minutes now. That's not normal. Especially not for a guy.'
'Maybe he gets cleaned up' the voice in her head spoke. 'He *was* pretty dirty.'
"Yeah, probably. I'll give him five more minutes, then I'll check on him." she murmured to herself, returning to her work. But she couldn't concentrate. There was no sound coming from the bathroom. Not even the tab was running and she knew you could hear that out here because her colleague always brushed her teeth in there after lunch break. After looking up for the fifth time she let out a long sigh and got up. Crossing the room, she called:
"Hey, mister, are you okay?"
Getting no answer, she swallowed and knocked on the door.
"Are you still in there?"
No answer. A feeling developed in her stomach, like the tell-tale love-butterflys but without the pleasant part. She swallowed again and slowly tried to open the door. It wasn't locked, but after half a meter it hit on something. Peeking through the crack, she let out a small cry. The guy in the strange jumpsuit was laying slumped on the floor, obviously unconscious. Slipping through the small opening she knelt down beside him and turned him around. His eyes were closed, and now, looking at him close-up, she realized he really looked pretty ill.
'Oh my God what do I do now?' she thought frantically. 'Water. You can wake people up with water.'
She dug pack of Kleenix from her pants pocket, soaked them in the sink and passed the dripping rags over his forehead and cheeks.
"Come on, mister, wake up, I don't need any customer laying on the floor of the staff's bathroom, it's only more trouble and I had enough of that today, come on..."
Suddenly his eyes jerked open and he gasped. Scrambling away frantically, he reached to rub the water out of his eyes. Then he blinked several times, giving her a confused look.
"What...where does the water come from?" he finally asked with a raspy voice.
"Well, you had obviously fainted, and I just tried to wake you up. I'm sorry if I got any in your eyes, but you got me pretty scared, you know." she said apologetically. Letting out a sigh, the guy leaned back against the wall.
"Thank you" he said. "I...haven't eaten anything, so maybe that was why..."
"Do you want me to get you to the hospital?" she asked. He still seemed a little out of it.
"No thanks. I'm fine, I don't need to go to sickbay."
"Sickbay?" she asked, confused. He looked at her, blinking.
"Umm, the hospital, I mean."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes" he said with emphasis and got up. As soon as he took his hand from the wall, he started swaying on his feet, and she scrambled to her feet to catch him before he fell.
"Do you want to sit down?" she asked."We have a couch in the backroom."
He looked at her, and smiling slightly he nodded."That would be a good idea, I think."
-###-
"Well, and now he's sleeping on the couch in the back room." finished Petra her report of the events of this morning. Her collegue and friend Sonja had listened intensely and exclaimed the appropriate ahs and ohs and oh my gods. Now she looked at Petra wide-eyed and, after a short moment of silence asked: "Why didn't you call the police? Or at least a doctor? I mean, he comes in, creeps you out and then faints in the bathroom. I would have called *someone*."
"I don't know. He didn't seem threatening, you know. Yes, he was kind of creepy, coming in here looking like something dead and asking for a city map, of all things. But see, he didn't try anything. When I showed him the maps he didn't even try to grab one and run for it, so I figured he couldn't be too bad."
"Well, if he can't even shit without fainting I don't think he could have outrun you. And he probably knew that, too, so that doesn't proof anything."
"I know that, too...but he didn't seem like a bad guy. He seemed like...something had gone really wrong for him and he was trying to pick up the pieces."
"Oh, you looked at him and figured:'well, dark circles under his eyes, strange mechanic's overall, faints in the bathroom...that guy has some big problems, but it's not his fault, he's just a poor victim of fate'. I am sorry but this sounds too much like Hollywood to be real. I think you should have called someone...you could have called me, at least, I had to come here anyway."
"Well, I didn't. But you got your share of information, so why are you complaining?"
"It's not about information!" Sonja exclaimed. "What if he's an escaped patient from a mental hospital?"
Petra started to giggle:"Watch out", she said in a dramatic voice, "cause there are...*wackos* out there!"
Sonja started laughing as well. "It *could* be after all!"
"Yeah, and I *could* be a secret agent of the KGB. After all, what do you really know about me?"
"You're west-european. That's not very KGB - like. And the KGB doesn't exist anymore anyway."
"How do you know?" Petra intoned in a voice even more dramatic, then she spoiled the effect as she burst out laughing. Sonja joined in. After some giggling they got themselves under control and returned to work.
"Your work day's over. Why are you staying anyway?" Sonja asked after some minutes.
"What do you think? I mean, I can hardly just go home and leave that poor guy with you. For all I know you probably would bring him straight to the next hospital and tell them to lock him into the mental ward. I can't do that to him."
"I thought you thought he was a hobo when he first came in. But you talk about him as if you plan him to be your next Jonas."
By the metioning of her ex Petra rolled her eyes. She swung her chair around so she could face Sonja and said, stressing the words: "First of all, Jonas has blond curly hair, that guy has black straight hair; second, Jonas has brown eyes, this guy has blue-grey ones and third Jonas is an asshole and that guy..."
"...is a wacko?" Sonja suggested dryly.
"No. Well, I don't know what he is, but I know that he's been asleep for over four hours now. I think I'll check on him and make sure he didn't die." Looking at her friend's interested gaze she added: "Yes, you *can* come with me."