I could feel the girl next to me on the bus looking at me. She was peering at my face with a strange kind of concentration. I kept looking at my book, but I felt a nagging sense of discomfort. She was watching my face closely, her wide eyes hardly blinking. Whenever I made a slight head movement, she turned away quickly, but let her eyes settle on me once I lowered my head to the page again. Her eyes were wide and took up most of the spaces on her face, this was not something I saw, but simply sensed. It was unnerving, this feeling of the big eyes on my face. She was studying me closely. I controlled my breathing and kept staring at the crawling words on the page. It was started to irritate me, what was she looking at?

I jerked my head up quite suddenly, I turned to look at her. She turned away then pretended that she had been looking out the window the whole time, not my face. She was a young girl, probably sixteen. She had straw blonde hair and, as I had guessed, wide eyes. She had an astonished look, it was not unpleasant. In fact, she was quite pretty. But I felt an intense sense of fear that stabbed me quite suddenly so that I had to look back down at my book. She had been studying me, I was sure. It was really creepy, those jelly bright eyes that stayed on my face like some kind of wet creature that had landed on my face and stuck there. Her gaze was limp and hollow. The thought struck me quite suddenly, the girl is probably crazy.

The bus bumped along Columbus street steadily. It was nine in the evening and the sky had already darkened into a velvet black. It was starless but the lights from the many store and restaurant signs made up for the lack of stars. They blinked and blazed. I kept my eyes on the page. I turned it over slowly, I found it hard to read when the girl was staring at me so strangely. I was reading a short story compilation and the story I was reading was by a Lisa Grillan, it was flat and uninteresting. I looked at it merely to avoid the gaze of the girl that was thrown on my face like a head beam.

My only thought was: Creepy creepy creepy. The bus bumped half-heartedly down the familiar Stockton street. There was still fifteen minutes before I get off. Oh God, please don't let her start a conversation with me. I have seen too many crazy people on San Francisco buses to return a crazy gaze. The best strategy was merely to ignore the crazies. Pretend that she was not sitting next to me and was not looking at me like I had a hole in my face that only her sticky look could fill.

The words drift past me without any real emotional grip. Besides, I was starting to think of octopuses. The girl's eyes were starting to remind me of a giant octopus I had once seen in an aquarium. It extended its tentacles and flopped around, throwing its arms out like a giant net, gulping the darkness in the tank greedily. Greedy for the darkness, for nothing at all.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see her watching my face closely. She glanced over at my book once in a while nervously. I could see her hands, they were clenched and white in the knuckles. She was twisting them in agitation. I was determined to read on even though the story was uninteresting and the narrative voice dry. I signed loudly deliberately. She glanced away. I hastily turned the pages in the book to see how many more pages I had to read on before the story ended. Three more pages. I wondered if I would finish it before I reached my stop.

The girl was insistent in trying to make eye contact, several times she inhaled deeply as if she was about to start a sentence then changed her mind. Two stops before mine, the girl stood up and got off the bus, she did not look at me when she got off. I was one page away from finishing the story.

I breathed a sigh of relief. Immediately, the air felt fresher and lighter. The heavy sense of weight and gravity that seemed to drag itself on me and the flimsy page of the book was lifted. I raised my shoulder and shook my head from side to side to clear that heavy sense of unease.

I closed the book. I would return it at the library, it was boring and the narrative voice unappealing to me. The author's picture on the back caught my eyes. There was something familiar about those huge eyes. They reminded me of sea creatures lurking in dark caves under the ocean. Just like one of those octopuses' eyes. Even the light blonde hair in the picture was not enough to give those eyes light. They just seemed to suck and suck. I thought of the girl on the bus. I wonder if she knew that I had finally finished the story that she didn't have to worry. Thoughts are altogether quite private and boredom is not easily revealed.

Paula knew something was up when her sister called. Her family and her had stopped talking for a few years now. If someone should ask her now if it hurt that her relationship with her family had fallen into a disrepair, she would wonder how to reply to that question. It hurt, sometimes, if she chose to think about it. Most of the time, though, it was like something rotten left to stay in the fridge. It was mostly harmless. She left it alone and when the occasional thought of her family arose at night before she fell asleep, she brushed the thought off and thought of cows in meadows instead. Her sister's voice on the phone was eager with a note of nervousness, she wanted to invite Paula to her daughter's third birthday party. Paula was suspicious at first. Why the sudden change? Besides, wouldn't she bring bad luck to the party? Her sister's voice was strained with a forced cheerfulness.

"We're Christians now, we don't believe in bad luck anymore. Please come. Lisa wants to see her Aunt."

"Does Lisa know what her Aunt does for a living?" Paula had to control her voice for fear that all her anguish and sarcasm would bring a flood of bad memories to them both. She too, had adopted a slight kdding tone.

Her sister laughed, Paula thought nervously.

Paula promised that she would check her schedule and call her back. She wanted to think it over before she gave an answer.

Besides, she too had a busy life. She did not have a family, but there were always clients she had to tend to. Death never took a holiday, and neither did she.

Paula's mother had been a beautician and had been so proud of Paula when she graduated from beauty school. Back then, Paula's dream was to open her own beauty parlour. Her mother had been so excited she would squeal at the thought of seeing her own daughter's beauty parlour. Then Paula's father died.

It was not his death itself that transformed Paula. In fact, his father's corpse had impacted Paula much more than the man did when he was alive. It was what she witnessed as the undertaker dressed his father. How the undertaker closed her father's eyes with such care. Then took out a make-up kit she had seen plenty of times and chose a foundation that was close to her father's skintone when he was alive. She watched as the undertaker used a brush to give his father a slight blush as if he had just had a good laugh after a beer. Paula was amazed.

The undertaker, a kind man by the name of Mr Took was a little surprised at Paula's interest.

"Most of the time, people prefer not to watch the process. They feel, uncomfortable."

Paula nodded. It was a little bizzare, she had ot admit, watching this man apply make up on the ashen skin that she knew must have felt cold anad stiff to the touch.

"Is it disturbing?" She had asked, when Mr Took applied a hint of lipstick on her father.

He shook his head. "One gets used to it." Then after a pause. "Someone has to do it."

"Did you have to get a license for your er...practise?" She wondered if her question seemed rude. She didn't want him to think that she questioned his ability in anyway. If anything, she thought his profession noble.

"Well, back when I started doing this. There wasn't such a thing as licensing, but now, it's hard to say. I never had any formal training." He leaned over Paula's father to remove the excess lipstick.

"I'm a beautician. Can someone like me be an undertaker?"

It was then, that Mr Took paused. He straightened his back and studied her. There was a pause when neither of them spoke. A slow light seemed to dawn on Mr Took's eyes. At first they narrowed in suspicion as if detecting if Paula was making fun of him, then it slowly widen and softened.

"It's a calling. Not everyone can do it." Then wondering if that was a tad discouraging, he smiled at her. "Besides, I prefer to be called a Mortician."

It was through such a strange encounter that Paula gave up her dream of being a beautician and took to learning the art of dressing the dead and preparing them for their final departure from the world of the living.

Her family was shocked at her decision. Her mother, heartbroken. "How could she?" she kept asking through hysterical sobs. It was morbid, they agreed. Why would she prefer beautifying the dead to the living? It was a treason not only against her family but against all of the living and breathing.

"It's disgusting." Her sister had said.

The drift with her family happened slowly. She did not get invited to her mother's birthday. Then when her sister got married, they sent her an apology for not inviting her. The groom's family, according to her sister, was a supersitious bunch. When Lisa, her sister's first baby was born she was not informed and only heard about it from a distant relative. The baby's full-month party when she was one month old also excluded Paula. Once in while, she would receive photos of Lisa and she would reply with cards to congratulate. But slowly, the letters became fewer and Paula had given up on hearing any news from her family.

She never would have guessed how difficult it was to be a mortician. Her first encounter with Mr Took did not give her a clue. He was cheerful in a way that did not seem unappropriate. He made things easy for the families and guests by putting himself in such close contact with the dead. People did not want to be reminded of death, the stillness, the coldness of it. They wanted to see warmth and traces of life even on the dead. But it was hard. She lost a few friends and when strangers ask her what she does for a living, they would show shock then ask to be excused.

Before Paula and her family relationship fell into total disintegration, her mother had beegged her to change her mind.

"What kind of guy would want a mortician for wife?" She had asked and cried.

"Perhaps, I can marry another undertaker?" She thought it was funny, but her mother had been insulted. Back then, she did not know that her mother had spoken the truth. The life of an undertaker can be a lonely one.

"Hello? Jessica? I'll come to Lisa's party. All right, see you soon."

As she put down the phone, she felt a a tingle on her fingertips. She was nervous, but she could not deny that she was happy. It would be the first time she had seen her sister in three years.

She wanted to get Lisa something. Something significant, yet not over the top to show how much she cared for not just her niece, but also her sister. What would be an appropriate present for a three year old?

At the toy store, she strolled along the aisles of toys. There were so many, she felt like she had entered into an alien world. There were kids screaming and running. A little boy was spinning on the floor, cluthcing a toy robot and his father was adamantly shaking his head. "I'm going to leave you now." The father threatened but the boy kept screaming.

She wandered into the dolls section. She and Jessica had spent so many afternoons looking at dolls in toy stores when they were younger. They loved dressing them up and doing thier hair for parties and dates. A little girl was looking at the various dolls in the diaplay cabinet. Paula joined her. The dolls were all in beautiful gowns. They each wore beautiful jewelries and had their own handbags and high heeled shoes.

The little girl turned to Paula. "Aren't they beautiful?"

Paula nodded.

"When I grow up. I want to be just like them. I'm gong to be a beautician when I grow up."

Paula could see the glow in the little girl's eyes. Paula smiled, she was surprised when she felt her eyes misting over. She tired to think of cows on meadows, but the visions of the dolls in their dazzling gowns was overpowering. She felt the wetness on her cheeks before she could stop herself.

'Get out of the bus!" Alicia and Stacy were banging on the bus window. "Get out."

It was a stupid idea. Doris had flipped her middle finger at Alicia when she saw Alicia's gang walking by at the intersection. She didn't think that she would be caught. Alicia happened to look up, then she told her gang and they ran after the bus.

"Get out!" They were shouting.

"Why should I get out?" Doris turned her back to them.

"Because I don't like your ass."

"So why should I get out?" Doris shouted out the window, half expecting them to board the bus to get her. But the doors closed and the bus pulled away slowly. She could still see Alicia and the other girls flailing their arms at her, glaring and taunting her. She knew she would get it in class tomorrow.

Alicia was pretty in a way teenage boys went crazy over. She had nice curves and nice hair. She had a wide smile which hid a hint of meanness. For some reason the other boys loved her meanness. It made her seem confident and sexy, but she was such a bully. Doris, on the other hand was plump and dark, she had curly hair that she tied up in a bun. She also had a little fuzz around her lips that Alicia and the rest called a "mustache".

Alicia was vicious when it came to people who offended her. For some reason, everyone did whatever she wanted them to. Those other girls--her lackeys were meaner than Alicia. Alicia didn;t have to do anything. All she had to do was to declare her dislike for someone and that person was marked. her gang would make their school days so horrible they would cry. There was once someone who threatened to kill herself to stop the bullying, but all it did was to make Alicia and gang alienate the poor girl. She moved away shortly after. Doris still wondered how she was doing.

Doris watched the trees brushing by the bus window. She was worried. What would happen in school tomorrow? She tried to think of all the fun things she would do when she got home, but her discomfort on her own position made her worry. Jessica, a tiny Chinese girl from her class was on the bus and she witnessed everything.

"Why did Alicia say she doesn't like you?"

'I don't know" Doris frowned, "but I don't like her either."

Jessica nodded thoughtfully. "Yeah."

Then silence. Both girls were deep in thought.

There really wasn't anything else to say. Jessica was trying in her own small way to make Doris feel better, but even she felt afraid for Doris. People like them needed to stay out of the way of Alicia's gang. The more invisible they were, the better.

Doris told herself again and again. It really wasn't such a big deal. She could handle it, whatever Alicia planned. But Alicia was intimidating, in front of her, Doris would feel her own strength draining. She had seen what Alicia has done to others. There was home, but it was not much of a protection against Alicia. Her life now, as she understood, revolved around school. Alicia would make sure that she would have no place to hide.

It was her stop and Doris got off. She slowly lugged herself home. It was a long walk uphill, but tha would help her clear her mind now clouded with fear for what was to happen to her when she got to school tomorrow.

An old bum lying on the pavement with a sign that said: Why lie? I need a beer. looked at her. "Hey you young girl. It's about to be summer soon."

Doris nodded. The old bum was helping her take her mind of Alicia and the rest.

"It's summer. You should have fun. It's right to have fun, but make sure you have something under your belt. So that when you're twenty, twenty-one. You'll have something. Summers, they go by fast."

Doris nodded again and started to walk away. She could still hear the old bum mumbling "They go by fast."

The next day, she got up as usual. Her mother was already in her hospital scrubs ready to leave the house.

"Mum?"

"What is it?" Her mother was chucking the dishes form the table into the sink that was already piled up with dirty dishes.

"I don't feel well. Can i stay at home today?"

Her mother looked at her face. "What's wrong?"

"I feel kind of dizzy."

Her mother placed her hand on Doris's forehead, frowning deeply. "You're fine. Get to school."

She shooed Doris out of the house and locked the door with a resolute click. "You know why you need to go to school. Do you want to grow up and spend your life cleaning hospital beds like me?"

Doris shook her head, she could feel her eyes clouding over.

"We didn't come to the U.S for you to stay home and watch T.V. Your life is already so much better than mine. Now get to school."

Doris dawdled to stall time. She took a detour to the bus stop. She usually took the eight-fifteen bus that was packed to the brim with students like her and others all trying to get to work on time. But that day, she sat around at the bus stop watching the world rush by. Then at eight-fifty she got on the bus. It was strangely empty. She had never seen a bus that calm. The bus was full of empty seats so she sat by a window and watched the scenery outside.

She got off at the usual stop. It was a ten minutes walk to school. She strolled slowly in the direction of school. She watched the many houses and the gardens, trying to name as many of the plants as she knew.

Outside her school, she could hear that lessons had already started. There was the soft murmuring of the voices of teachers and the sound of whistle blowing in the field where some of the students were having their physical education class. She sat down on the pavement. She could no go any further. She sat and she waited. A white cat was walking on the pavement towards her. It must be one of the cats from one the neighboring houses. It studied her for a moment, then it purred and tried to warp itself around her legs. She patted the cat, stroking its soft fur and looked out . There was a road in front of her. It was grey and empty. It seemed to stretch on forever.

"The salami witch is here." Jake whispered to me as I was helping a middle aged blonde. I looked up and there she was in her mob of black curls and that signature snarl. I wondered if she knew how much she resembled a dog when she snarled like that. We made up stories about her during our lunch breaks at the deli. Jake came up with the idea that she had been abandoned at birth by her mother because of how ugly she was. I thought perhaps she got cheated by a boyfriend when she was young. I deliberately took my time scooping the potato salad to aoivd helping the witch. I strolled to the weighing machine slowly, I could see Jake was doing the same. Neither of us wanted to help her.

"Anything else I can get for you?" I asked the blonde sweetly, hoping she would sense my desperation and order some hand-made ravioli that were kept in the back.

"That's all."

I sighed. I could see the salami witch twitching impatiently. Her pudgy fingers scartching her left eye. She was in a bad mood, as always.

The blonde left without turning to say thank you. The salami witch came forward to the counter. I noticed that she took up the length of the counter completely. I put on my friendliest smile.

"Hi, are you back for more salami?"

She growled at me. Tapped her bloated hand on the counter, made a clicking sound with her tongue then nodded, glaring at me as if I had just mowed down her entire family with a monster truck.

"Ok. More pepperoni salami I assume." I kept being cheerful, thinkg that maybe that would piss her off further.

I grabbed all the pepperoni salami we have hanging off the side of the counter and plopped them down in front of her. I knew what was going to happen. She was going to inspect each and everyone of them. If they weighed too much I would have to take them back. If they had a little unnatural bump, she growled and tossed them back to me. It was a little ritual I was familiar with. If she was not satisfied with the batch she made us go to the back to bring out more until she was happy.

I watched her eyeing the salami like a diamond expert. She was searching them out for flaws. I tapped my foot and watched her face--that frown, the slightly crossed eyes, her face which resembled a cold pudding more and more by the second. She is a perfect specimen of ugliness. I thought it was possible that she had been abandoned at birth by her parents. Perhaps her parents took one look at her face and decided that there was no God and left her to her own devices.

"I'll take these." She groweled. She clawed me as she handed me a twenty. When I handed her the change, she snatched them right out of my hand and stormed off but not before giving me and Jake another evil look. I looked at the clock. There had been an improvment today, she only took twenty-seven minutes to pick her salami.

"I wonder why she only buys salami." Jake was still gloating from the fact that he got lucky.

I was still sore that I was the one who had to serve the witch.

"I don't know. Maybe it's her staple diet. That would certainly explain her looks."

Jake laughed. I felt better.

"Hey." Jake came closer.

I could sense that he was hatching some kind of no-good conspiracy. He was always trying to get me in trouble.

"Hey." He tapped me on the shoulder as if wanting to let me in on some secret.

I swept his hand away."What is it?"

"You want to know something?"

I frowned at him. Jake can be such an asshole. "Just say it."

He leaned in. "I know where the witch lives."

"How do you know?" I tried not to sound too interested.

"I saw her walking her cat." Jake sniggered. "She had her siamese on a leash. The cat is as ugly as she is."

"No one walks a cat." I could not help but smile.

"That's why she's a witch." Jake was up to no good, I could tell by the way he smiled and looked at me with his impish eyes. "I followed her to her apartment. She lives five blocks from here."

"So?" I didn't want to give Jake the idea I wanted in on whatever plan he was cooking up.

"So, I'm saying. Let's go check out her lair and see what she is brewing up there."

"You're stupid." My true sentiments--if Jake ever had an idea, it was dumb.

"She lives on the third floor, I saw her at the windows. She always walks her cat at night. I say we go in when she's out."

I should have said no. But if I did, Jake would call me a chicken and make life hellish at the deli for me for months. I said nothing. He took it as a yes.

That night, we walked over to the witch's arpatment building after we locked up the deli. Jake pointed at a window. It was dark.

"Let's go."

Jake must have been planning the thing for a while. He knew exactly where the staircase was. He climbed up the stairs two steps at a time.

"I bet you, she is doing some vodoo with those salami."

Jake was excited like a puppy. I followed him, feeling a sens of dread at the bottom of my stomach. I didn't think it was a good idea at all. But I couldn't say no, not after we've gotten so far.

Jake got to her apartment door. Signaled a monkey grin and pulled out a swiss army knife.

"Watch." He nodded at me, showing off. "I learnt this from my cousin."

He took the smaller blade and stuck it into the keyhole, twisted it around and miraculously we heard a click. The click seemed to echo down the empty corridor. I wanted to go home.

"After you." Jake extended his arm and bowed like a head-waiter at some fancy restaurant.

The room was dark. I stumbled around and found the light switch. I flipped it on and the room came into view. It took a moment for our eyes to adjust to the light. But we caught sight of the thing at the same time.

On top of a large dinning table that could easily have sat eight people was a whole city made out of salami. It looked like one of those medieval towns. It had a castle inside a fortress, there were towers, a cathedral. There were even stables and farm houses. We walked closer to inspect the town. EVery part of it was made out of salami. The witch had cut up little salami slices and placed them on some kind of wood or cardboard for support and she made a whole town out of it.

"Oh My God."

I could hear Jake's gasp. "Oh man, she is crazy. This is sick."

I couldn't say anything. All I could do was look at the intricate town made out of slabs of salami. The salami I sold everyday. Common chucks of meat. Even the floor of the town had salami cobblestones.

"Oh My God. She is sick. Let's go. I don't want to have anything to do with the crazy woman." Jake was pulling on my elbow.

"I wonder how long she has been working on this thing." I still couldn't take my eyes off it.

"Who cares. Let's go. This is creeping me out." Jake was already walking towards the door.

I didn't want to admit it, but it was the most amazing thing I have seen in my life thus far. I took one more look at it. Its red marbled majestic towers, cathedral and castle walls. I thought I could hear trumpets sounding in the little city.

"Hey." Jake called impatiently.

I switched off the light and ran out. Jake slammed the door and we ran the rest of the way. We didn't stop until we reached the deli.

"That is the craziest thing I have ever seen." Jake muttered.

I nodded, but all I could think of was the pieces of salami that formed a whole city. I thought of little salami people and little salami cows.

"Want to grab a pizza before you head home?" Jake interrupted my thoughts.

"Sure." I said, "just as long as it is not pepperoni."

He laughed and we headed off into the night, our thoughts still on a salami world that existed somewhere out there.

The sensation struck him as he was working on the numbers. He had been doing numbers for the past thirty-five years. It started from his chest then it spread to his abdomen then down to his legs and his fingertips. It was a soft kind of rumble, like a tingling but much subtler and gentler. He had not felt this way for as long as he remembered. He got up from his chair and started for the coffee machine, but when he got to the pantry, he changed his mind and kept walking. He walked past the managers' offices, the receptionist who gave him a strange look and out the door. His briefcase, his lunch box, his coffee mug all still at his desk like soldiers on duty, anxious to be of some kind of use. All he had on him was his wallet, but the feeling was so strong, he kept going. he hit the down button for the elevator and when it arrived he got in without hesitation. It did not strike him as strange that at ten-thirty in the morning when he should be working numbers he was instead leaving his office building.

The morning sky was beautiful at ten-thirty on a wednesday, but the people he passed by on the streets seemed not to notice the sky or him or anything. They were all busy in their own thoughts. He had not idea where he was going, all he was sure of was the feeling warming his chest spreading up to the root of his hair. And that his legs were leading him and all he had to do was to follow. It was a feeling of security familiar to children, but for a man of forty-seven, it was strange as it was assuring for a child.

He had trouble walking. It had to do with his weight. He knew he was overweight and sometimes people gave him unpleasant looks on crowded trains or in restaurants. The waitresses were especially accusing when they took his order. It was as if his wanting to purchase food was indulging in some great personal evil that they were ashamed of being an accomplice in. For the longest time he could not see any priviledge to being fat. People assumed a lot of things when they saw his size, his belly hanging low, his waddle. But now he understood the beauty of obesity, it is privacy that the world afforded him in moments like this. No one gave him any attention, they steered clear of his path. And that morning, it was as if the sun was shining for him alone and the road glistened under his feet only for his eyes.

He followed his legs. They brought him to the train station. They skipped down stairs with a lightness that surprised even himself. Then the legs just stopped right at the platform. He watched people come and go with the passing trains and his legs remained still. He found himself a seat on a stone bench and just waited. People rushed in and out of the train doors. They all seemed to have a blindness to them that had little to do with being underground. They dashed around madly, and the trains rushed in through one end of the tunnel and left. He just sat and watched. THings, people moving into and out of view, the world forever in motion. That warm feeling that had summoned him here had faded a little. He started wondering at the strangeness of it all.

An emergency phone sat beside him. Above it was a huge sign that said: Only for emergency use. The sign was red and obnoxious, but the phone itself was a quiet navy blue. It hung lonely and still on the wall. He had always wondered what kind of a voice would be at the end of a phone like that. Then that same feeling drove him to pick up the phone. He had expected the feeling to be exhiliarating--doing something illogical and illegal. But it all felt quite normal. It was merely a phone with a sign above it.

A strong vibrant voice that he attached to a face of a sturdy black woman picked up the call. "Yes, how can I assist you? What seems to be the problem."

He stuttered a little from the confusion of having nothing to say. "Nothing is the matter. It's just that I...it's all going to sound very strange to you."

"Sir, is this a matter of emergency?"

He could detect a hint of irritation in the voice. "I wouldn't say so, no."

"Then, why, may I ask are you using the station's emergency phone? "

He had no answer to that, so he stayed silent.

"This phone is reserved for use in case of emergency. "

Then there was a silent. Both of them now had run out of things to say. He had revealed that there was no emergency and she had stated clearly that the phone was only to be used in the case of one.

"Should I put down the phone?" He asked doubtfully.

She said nothing but he imagined a irritated grimace on her face. She must be thinking he was such an idiot.

"You should be fined five hundred dollars to teach you a lesson."

She waited for a response but he was silent.

:"Is this some kind of a cheap thrill for you?"

"No, not really, no" he tried to find words to explain himself "Quite honestly, I don't know why I did it."

There was an expectant silence on the other end, so he continued. "I had this strange feeling that took me from work this morning and brought me here. That same feeling made me pick up this phone."

The voice muttered a disbeliving "hmm"

"It is so nice out. I have never noticed the world outside at ten thirty. I am usually so busy working, I don't see the sky until it gets dark. I never knew that this phone existed until today."

There was a sigh at the other end of the line. "Next time, do not use this phone unless it is a matter of urgency. I usually give citations for offense like this, but I'm going to let you off this time. Don't pick up this phone again, you understand?"

He nodded, but before he could say anything. The woman hung up. He put down the receiver and sat drinking in the vibration of constant movements and the slight rumbling of trains that trailed and hung in the air like a signature.

Grace, put down the phone. Marcus, a station security, walked into the station information booth. He was a big Latino who looked like he could rip a phone directory in two. He watched her face.

"What happened?"

Grace shook her head " just a weirdo."

Marcus rubbed his eyebrow as he watched his own reflection on the glass of the information booth. "The city is full of them."

Grace nodded. She looked outside. It was ten-fifty. Indeed, she thought, the sky is beautiful.

When I was a child. A strange character lived right above me in our apartment building. My family lived on the second floor and he lived on the third. All of the people in the building called him the Malaysian although he really was a Chinese. Perhaps it was because of his tanned skin and his build. Unlike the other men living in the building, he had broad shoulders and was tall. He had wavy hair and everyone agreed that he was handsome in a slightly unorthodox way. He was strange. In my memory, he was always the person people gossiped about. He was supposed to have been forty five and had for a while worked in Burma doing hard labor, but I think all that were mere stories people made up. He had that mystery about him. For the ten years we lived in the apartment, he had retained that same mystery. He was not young, but because he never had any family, he always had that bachelor charm that made him seem younger than he really was. Even for his age, he was pretty wild. He had so many girlfriends, even the building's gossips could not keep track of them. Every other week he would invite some woman to his apartment and for several days we would see his women coming and going, but then, they always mysteriously disappeared and someone else would take their place. It was a cycle that we got used to in the building.

For all his mystery, there was one thing we all knew about the Malaysian, he was a compulsive liar. Everyone knew that. He lied to get extensions on paying his rent. He told a different story every time anyone ever asked about his past. Even his women, he lied to get them to go home with him. That was what the adults used to whisper about. There was always a certain excited buzz when the adults discussed the Malaysian's lies. The women would talk about his lies admiringly, claiming often that if they had such fancy stoires to sweep them off their feet, they too will follow him home. The men grunted in disgust, such cheap tricks: women as they all knew were a bunch of softies and were, according to their logic, extremely gullible. Still, that did not explain why the land lord granted him rent extensions month after month. I asked him once, why he still gave the Malaysian credit when he knew that he was lying. The landlord merely exclaimed that I shouldn't fault the man for being a good story teller. So in all the children's eyes, the Malyaisan had a mythical quality, a secret knowledge on how to get away with things that we as children tried so hard to get away with.

For a while, the Malaysian dated the daughter of the owner of the grocery store on the street corner. We would watch him drop by every afternoon on pretext of buying cigarettes so he could chat up Lucy. Though it was obvious as day to all of us kids, the whole thing seemed to have eluded the grocery store owner who didn't seem to notice that the Malaysian was trying his tricks on his daughter. Luckily, or perhaps unluckily, for the grocery store owner, the Malaysian soon lost interest in Lucy. We caught him trying to steal kisses from her in the neighborhood movie house but we thought that was as much he got out of her. I tried to ask Lucy why she would date a liar, but she just battered her lashes at me and shrugged her shoulders.

It made it all the more infuriating when we were taught in school that lying was wrong and that one should never in any circumstance lie. I asked mother about this and all she said was that I should try to be a good boy and not worry about the Malaysian.

"Sometimes," she said, "people are just the way they are."

"But surely, he can change?"

But my mother just smiled, " Sometimes these traits are in people's characters, and you can't change that."

That got it into my head, that perhaps if I was bad for long enough, my parents would accept that it was just in my character and that I could never change. But of course, that never happened.

The summer I turned eight, I remember trying hard to unrevel the secret of the Malaysian. My neighbor and I would spy on his apartment from the roof of the adjacent apartment building. Once in a while, when we hung around in the lobby area we would run into him and he would say hi to us. But always, I held him in suspect because I thought he had a skill I could learn. Being so good at it, to the extent that he could even fool my mum made me resent him a little.

It was that same summer that a new apartment building on our street got completed and we started to see a lot of new faces walking our street. It made the owner of the grocery store happy to see new customers. But we the kids of the building was unhappy because that meant sharing out territories with new kids we were not familiar with. We also lived in constant fear of older kids who might try to push us around. To our relief, most of the new inhabitants seemed to be old folks. Sometimes we would watch them shuffle slowly down the street and imagine shooting our sling shots at them.

But I distinctly remember that it was that same summer that I witnessed the Malaysian's magic with my own eyes. I was in the grocery store with little Tam who was two years younger than me. We would reading the dollar fifty comics. The Malaysian was lounging around the cashier small talking with the grocery store owner when this old lady came in. She was in dsitressed, wringing her hands in agony. She asked if the grocery store owner could help her make an overseas call. She had heard from her son-in-law that her daughter got into a car accident and was hospitalized. They lived in the States and she did not know how to make overseas calls. The message about her daughter she had gotten from a relative. Not being able to learn about the daughter, she was overcome with worry. She told the grocery store owner that she had tried getting help from her neigbors but none of them could make international calls. She handed a slip of paper with a phone number on it and asked the grocery store owner if he could help her call the number. The store owner was reluctant, naturally because international calls were expensive. A five minutes call could easily have amounted to twenty dollars and that was a lot of money back then. The Malaysian, seeing the grocery store owner's hesitation, told him to do it and to put the bill on his account. The store owner looked at him in a way that I can only describe as a mixture of admiration and gratefulness then started to dial the number on the scrap of paper. He didn't seem to remember that the Malaysian was already buying things on credit from the store. The question of where the money would come from didn't seem to cross the store owner's mind.

The Malaysian watched the old lady wring her gnarled hands, her eyes red with anxious tears. He put his arm around her shoulder and told her
"It's going to be okay. My son was once in a car accident, he broke his leg and fractured his ribs but he survived. Now, he still plays football and outruns me. It's going to be alright, you'll see."

She was silent and watchful, waiting for a sign from the store owner that the call has gotten through. We all waited when the store owner passed her the receiver. After what seemed like a endless conversation. She finally put down the phone. She had spoken to her son-in-law and apparently her daughter was not in danger, she would have to wear a cast for the next few months but she would live. We all breathed a sigh of relief. Once she put down the phone, to our surprised, she hugged the Malaysian and burst in tears. Then as abruptly as she entered the store, she left. We watched her leave. Having witnessed the whole incident I was full of wonder. When the Malaysian walked out of the store, I followed him.

"Why did you lie about a son? We all know you don't have a son. Why did you lie?" I kept asking even as the Malaysian kept walking. He didn't answer me. I stopped walking and watching his backview moving away in the setting sun.

" Why do you lie?"I shouted.

The Malaysian turned around and gave me a smile. I couldn't read his face, it was lit a gentle orange by the sun but half his face was in the shadows. He smiled at me for a moment, then without a word, he turned around and kept walking. I watched his back view get smaller and smaller until eventually, he was out of sight.

There has been complaints for weeks about noises at night in the apartment's dumpster. He was instructed to keep a close eye on his night patrols to spot any suspicious activities in or around the dumpster. Having paid so much to live in the apartment complex, the residents did not want a bum hiding out in the place they have allocated for their trash. And he was paid to keep inconveniences such as these at bay. Carlo, the manager of the apartment told him to keep trouble and bums out of the place. He was an okay fella but the residences were a picky bunch and he understood that Carlo had a job to keep.

He had been keeping an especially close watch over the dumpster. There were no signs that anyone was inhabiting the place but the bums had their own ways of getting in and out of places with little visibility. Having been ignored so often, sometimes it almost seems as if they really have attained a physical invisibility. He spent the first hour of his shift, patrolling the complex grounds. He always started at the front gates then headed to the back garden by the pool then coming back a full circle to the front gate through the side entrances. Then he took his ten minutes break in the office, eating the leftovers from his dinner and making himself a cup of coffee form instant mixes in the office.

He went back to patrolling and as he passed by the dumpster he heard the indistinct shuffle. It could have been an animal but the shuffling had a rhythm to it. Whatever was making that noise, it wasn't being discrete. He put his hand on his baton and crept up to the door of the dumpster. He was not afraid, whatever or whoever was in the dumpster would not be a menace. Something that could be so attracted to the unwanted waste of people would not be a big threat but he still wanted to be safe just in case. Baton in hand, he strode to the door and pushed it open. It was a tiny figure inside. For a moment he thought he was looking at a mutated creature of sorts but after his eyes adjusted to the dark he could make out the shape of a bent-over woman. She had her back turned to him and seemed not to have noticed his entrance. She had her hands all the way inside the trash cans. She was digging up cans and bottles. She already had a bag filled with plastic bottles and recyclable glass containers of all sorts.

He shone her flashlight on her. It was at the intrusive beam of light that she turned around, half astonished, half irritated that he had interrupted her in the midst of her task.

"Hey Mam, you can't be here. This is private property."

She looked at him curiously, then turned her back to him and started rummaging again.

"Hey. Hey." He strode closer turning the beam on her face. She looked at him and squinted her eye, she showed no fear, only a look of incomprehension. Her looked at her grey hair , they glowed in the light.

"You understand English? You can't be here. You got to leave. Leave."

The woman muttered something to him, he guessed it must be Chinese.

"I don't know what you are saying. But you" he pointed at her "have to leave" and then pointed at the door.

She said another barrage of undicipherable words, motioning with her hands, gesturing at the trash cans, the bags and herself. He just shook his head and told her she had to go and this time to make the point clear, he picked up her bag of collected cans and moved them outside the door, then pointing at the door again, he told her "Go." At that, she reluctantly closed the trash cans and left.

He told Carlo in the morning. Carlo laughed.

"What? So all along those night sounds was just an old Chinese woman collecting cans? These people make too much of a fuss over nothing."

He tried to laugh along with Carlo.

"But whatever it is , just make sure she doesn't come back. Personally, I have nothing against the old lady, but the people here... you know."

He nodded.

When he told Rosa this, she frowned at him.

"So do it. What's the problem? Just tell her to go the next time you see her. It's not like he's asking you to beat her up." She rubbed her swollen belly, the baby was getting big fast.

"But Rosa, you don't understand, she's old and she's bent over. It's like she needs those cans or something."

Rosa just stuck her belly in front of him and said "Think of our baby. Plus, you need the job. Just do what he says. You can give her twenty bucks or something."

That night, he felt nervous, for reasons he couldn't pin down. He had two cups of coffee. He tried to delay passing by the dumpster by taking extra long on his patrol route. He walked the pool four times and went back and forth through the side gates so that he would not pass by the dumpster off the side of the main gate. When he walked past the dumpster, he heard the shuffling again. He went in and the same old woman was digging through the trash with her bare hands, picking out bottles and putting them into her big plastic bag. She didn't hear him, or perhaps she pretended not to. She kept combing through the piles of rubbish. He watched her for a little then he turned on his flashlight. He waved it to get her attention, she turned around with her empty hands outstretched, her palms facing up. They stared at each other for a moment, then without his asking, she grabbed her bag and left. He watched her shuffle slowly out and watched her disappear down the hill with the half empty bag.

The next morning, Carlo was displeased. "There was a complaint again last night. Did you tell that woman not to come back?"

He shook his head. "She don't understand English. I tried. But last night, she left by herself. I didn't need to tell her."

"You should have scared her away. You could have made your point clear."

"But Carlo, she's old. You should have seen her, she's tiny and she's hunched over. She's like a hobbit or something."

" I don't care what she looks like." Carlo scratched furiously at his hair, he did it whenever he got frustrated. "It's our jobs we're talking about here."

"But what do you want me to do? Kick her?"

"Just make it clear that she can't be there ok?"

He nodded to appease Carlo and to avoid trouble but he didn't know how he could make the point clear.

That night, he skipped patrolling the complex, he just stood by the dumpster waiting for the old lady to appear. He spotted her a long way off. He watched her shuffle up the hill on her tiny feet. Taking one step at a time carefully, as if any moment she would lose her balance and roll down the hill. She had good stamina despite being so slow. He wondered if he would be able to climb up that hill if he was as old and as hunched over as her.

She took a while to get to the top of the hill. She saw him standing in front of the dumpster and spoke a stream of words he could not understand. He shook his head at her. When she tried to open the door, he put his hand on it to stop her from getting in. She pleaded with him--he could tell by the way she was gesturing like she was making little bows to him. He told her he was sorry and that he had a family to feed. He took twenty dollars from his pocket and handed it to her. But she shook her head and reached into her bag and pulled out a plastic bottle and pointed at it. He told her he was sorry and that there was nothing he could do, he didn't have a choice. He stuck the bill out to her. He was begging her to take it, but she just shook her head again and then turned to leave. He watched her disappear into the night, slowly and with great effort down the hill and out of sight.

In the morning, Carlo pat him on the shoulder and told him that he didn't need to worry about the old lady anymore, they were going to install a lock on the door so no old lady or bum could get in.

He waited for the old lady for several nights, but she never came by again. He often wondered what happened to her. Every time he walked past the dumpster he would think of her. Some nights he would watch the stars by the swimming pool, deep in the night when the world slumbered. He would watch the stars and think: how they looked so much like burning and sinking teardrops falling from the night sky.