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�Pottery making,� he continued, �Painting, poetry� -he climbed into bed- �plants, patchwork, citrus farming�� he drifted off to sleep.
The next time Francis woke up, the sun was up. He looked at the clock on his bedside table. It was 11:09. Way to oversleep, buddy, he thought as he stood up.
There was a knock at the door. Francis walked over to the window beside the door and looked to see who was there. There was a girl and a boy of about nine or ten standing there. They looked like they were having a fundraiser. Candy, maybe. Francis went to get his wallet from the kitchen counter. As he did so, he considered getting dressed first.
�Do I really want to be seen like this?� he said aloud. He was wearing a stained t-shirt and flannel pants (Flannel? In the middle of August? Why don�t you just turn the air conditioner off?). He decided not to bother changing, and went and opened the door.
�Hi, kids, what do you have today?� Francis asked.
The boy stood there sheepishly, but the girl piped up, saying, �We�re selling candy to raise money for our summer camp,� she said. �We need to buy a new canoe.�
"A canoe, huh?� Francis said, �Well, in that case, I�ll take two chocolate bars.�
The girl nudged the still silent boy in the ribs. He promptly took two bars out of his candy box. Francis paid them two dollars. The girl stuffed the money awkwardly into a crinkled envelope she pulled out of her pocket.
�Thank you,� they said shyly, and departed. Francis shut the door. He then walked to the bathroom.
Francis looked at his reflection in the mirror. �What are you looking at?� he asked it. �I�m bitter, not heartless. And they�re just kids. What, was I supposed to yell at them and tell them to get lost? That�s not how I�operate�� his voice trailed off. Slowly, his eyes moved from those of his reflection to the empty space over his right shoulder- or, at least it should have been empty space. Instead, his eyes met those of a small Mexican woman standing behind him. She was crying.
�Perdida,� the woman said tearfully. Francis turned around quickly. He expected to see the woman standing there, but she was gone.
�Yeah, that makes all sorts of sense,� Francis said sarcastically. ��Cause there�s really people standing there and then they just disappear.� He shook his head. �Man, am I cracking up! That�s what I get for sleeping so late.� He put toothpaste on his toothbrush and began to brush his teeth, checking the mirror periodically.
"You know,� he said suddenly, spitting out a mouthful of foam, �it�s really funny how she sounded just like the woman crying last night.� Francis gave a cynical snort of laughter. �This is gonna be a great weekend.�
Chapter 3
It was actually shaping up to be a pretty good weekend. Francis had spent most of Saturday cleaning the house (�Hey, I keep my word,� he had told his reflection as it stared mockingly at him). He picked up all of the dishes scattered throughout the house, washed them, and put them away. Then, he actually dusted the whole house- and thoroughly, too. It was only the second time Francis had dusted in his whole life. And after that, he vacuumed (he had had to dust the vacuum off first).
�This place is spotless,� he had said afterwards. �This place has never been spotless.� He was left with a sense of accomplishment that boosted his spirits and helped him forget about his alleged �insanity�.
Best of all, there had been no more visits from Miss Perdida, as Francis had colorfully dubbed the crying woman. He was considering her to be a �symptom of a highly-stressful work environment�, and he determined the only way to make sure she would never return would be to �have a painfully relaxing weekend, even if it meant a near-death amount of boredom�. Of course, he had scrapped that idea right after he began his cleaning spree. Still, it helped him forget�
�but not entirely.
�What does perdida even mean?� he asked himself that night. �Why don�t I learn Spanish? I have been looking for a hobby, haven�t I?� Francis walked over to the kitchen counter and picked up the pen and paper he kept beside the telephone. He tried to write the word down, but he wasn�t sure how to spell it. He had three variations by the time he gave up.
�Whatever,� he said, setting the paper back down beside the phone. According to the clock on the wall, it was already 6:00. Francis realized he hadn�t eaten all day. He quickly made himself a ham and cheese sandwich and sat down on the no-longer dusty sofa. He turned on the television and put the volume up higher than normal, just in case. The 6:00 news was on all of the local stations.
�A fire claimed the life of a local family earlier today�� �Last night, a woman escaped from a mental institution�� �The search for a missing boy ends tragically�� Every station only had bad news.
�And people wonder why I�m so uninformed,� Francis said. �Everything�s too depressing.� He shut off the TV and ate his sandwich in silence. The only sound other than his methodical chewing was the ticking of the wall clock. The sound seemed magnified by the silence. It only made Francis feel more nervous.
�Perdida,� he muttered as he got up to put his plate in the sink. �Maybe it�s her name or something.� Though he was trying to rationalize what had happened, Francis had not fully accepted that he had really seen or heard anything. He had also not fully accepted the thought that desperately tried to cross his mind.
�There are no such things as ghosts (there, I said it). She�s not a ghost. It�s a figment of my imagination. I�m hallucinating, that�s all. Buried memory from my childhood. Everything happens for a reason. I�m hallucinating for a reason. I�ll figure it out tomorrow.�
