The rain was light and soothing, and it afforded her more comfort than her earlier shower had provided. For a few moments, she was only aware of the rain, lightly pattering above her head. She liked the rain. This rain was steady, yet gentle. It was going to take care of her. She shook her head. No, that wasn't right. Her thoughts were getting muddled. The rain couldn't take care of anyone.

As she slowly came back into reality, she realized she was on the sidewalk about two blocks from where she worked. This confused her even more, and she wondered if she might be confused again, but the street sign confirmed her location. She took a deep breath. She knew basically where she was. She knew it was raining. She had no idea how she had gotten there.

Most of the morning was blank, as if she had done nothing before coming to stand in the middle of the sidewalk on 42^nd street. She knew that this was impossible. She knew that there had to be time accounted for. She hadn't merely rolled out of bed and onto the street. But for some reason, she felt as though it was all right that she didn't remember. She didn't want to remember. Something inside her knew that she didn't want to remember, even though she herself couldn't even remember what it was she didn't want to remember. The paradox confused her as she tried to work it out in her mind, and she felt the tinges on a migraine coming on, so she attempted to drop the subject entirely.

It was at this point that she noticed that she wasn't getting wet, despite the light pattering rain. She looked up to see the dark green bell of a vaguely familiar umbrella over her head. She suddenly looked all around her, for reasons she didn't quite understand. There was no one else on the street, near her, and she sheepishly realized that she held the smooth wooden handle of the umbrella herself.

She had no idea where she had gotten it. Looking up the fine wooden and steel shaft to the bell again she knew that she could never afford it. She was fairly certain that the umbrella had something to do with the events of the morning, but the tinges of the headache reminded her that she did not want to pursue that line of thinking. The sight of the umbrella left her feeling unsettled, but it was pleasant to touch, the handle firm and slightly warm in her hand. She gripped it tightly. Here was her anchor.

She took a step forward, towards work. Everything would be fine. Nothing had happened. She took another step. Nothing bad had happened. She'd get to work on time, she'd talk with her manager, everything would be fine. She took another step and squeezed the handle of the umbrella tighter. Everything would be fine. She'd have a cheese sandwich like always and mind the store at lunch. She took another step and tried to steady her pace out a little. It was all going to be okay. She tried to focus on the sidewalk in front of her and the pleasant words that she kept telling herself. Everything was all right. Everything would be all right. Then she saw it.

The man in front of her was carrying a fine leather brief case. The clasps were burnished and the leather suede. It looked very expensive, and she had see one just like it this morning. And the umbrella. It was his umbrella. Frantic, she scanned the man up and down. He was short, stocky and had a bald spot. No, that was not the man. She had seen the man on the subway. The man in the green suit. It was his umbrella. He had been on the subway. On the subway. She slumped against the wall. On the subway, with all those dead people.

She pulled the umbrella close to her, as if to hide from more than the rain, but the images came anyway. They came and came and her breathing was rapid and ragged. She was whimpering and shaking, pressed against the wall and hiding underneath the umbrella. Several people passed by, but none took any special notice of her. She was like an unpleasant piece of the scenery, something you notice, but do not acknowledge. Sometimes people didn't even notice.

The blood. All that blood, and the pink spatter on the back wall. Pop like a party favor and then he was dead. All those people were dead. Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat. Like firecrackers going off on Independence day. All slumped together, on top of each other. All of them dead, just like that. She curled tight into a ball and just fit under the bell of the umbrella. All of them dead. A pink splatter or the red on the floor and they were dead. But she wasn't dead. She wasn't a pink splatter or red on the floor. She wasn't dead. Everyone was dead. Why wasn't she dead? She had watched them all die, like some kind of morbid horror movie, or a nightmare. A nightmare. That was it. She had had a nightmare. She could remember now. She had had a nightmare that morning. Not real. A nightmare. No one dead, except in her mind. No one. Not real. Not real.

She repeated the two words over and over in a rhythm that she was finally able to slow her breathing with. It was like a canticle to protect her from harm. Not real. Not real. Suddenly someone tapped on the top of the umbrella.

"Miss, are you okay?"

She nodded, swallowing, and the man helped her to her feet. Not real, she reminded herself as she hurried down the street after thanking the man. Not real. Her watch read eight fifteen. She was late for work. All because of a silly nightmare. She didn't want her manager to angry with her, so she picked up speed, bobbing and weaving through the crowd, keeping a tight grip on the umbrella that was part of her nightmare.

The bookstore wasn't that far away, but her asthma left her out of breath and unable to articulate an excuse when she arrived, so the manager simply motioned her to the back, where she cleaned the smudges left by the dirty wall and street off with paper towels. She tried to make herself as presentable as possible, because she had no great desire to scare customers away. When she had sufficiently recovered her breath, she emerged from the bathroom and took up her place behind the counter.

Her manager didn't seem particularly concerned with her tardiness, and waved away her attempted explanation. He was shelving a box of books and singing along with the radio. They had no customers at the moment, so he called her over to help him.

The mundanity of the activity calmed her to an even greater degree, and she began to hum along with the song as her manager prattled on about his family. He loved sharing stories of the antics of his two small children with her, and she didn't mind listening, although she sometimes found their antics slightly less amusing than he did. She did play along however, and forced laughs whenever prompted.

He occasionally paused his stories to sing along with a song that he liked or to listen to the news briefs, but he spent most of the day talking, except when there were customers around. At one o'clock she ate the cheese sandwich she'd packed for her lunch and the manager left for half an hour to eat at the delicatessen down the street. His absence produced a lull in the noise level that she would have normally enjoyed but today left her feeling unsettled.

Uncomfortable in the silence, she turned the radio up and listened to the oldies station as she drank her coke and ate her sandwich. They played two Rolling Stones songs in a row before breaking into a news brief. She listened idly, transcribing the contents of one ledger into another. She had forcibly blocked out the nightmare from the morning. It wasn't real. She didn't need to remember it. It hadn't happened. A benign tranquility had settled on her, and her fears had been lulled into a peaceful slumber.

The report went on to detail the shooting of an unreleased number of people on the east branch of the subway by a disgruntled computer programmer. According to a news release, the man had killed all of the people in his car before turning the gun on himself. Due to the nature of the crime, and the fact that there had been no survivors, there were no witnesses to the actual crime, but several people on the platform had been present when the "Death Train" car rolled in. The news anchor concluded the report with the reminder that today's slaughter brought the number of mass shootings in the city to four in the past six months.

She gripped the counter until her knuckles turned white, unable to stave off reality any longer. It had happened. It had happened and she had been there. I had happened and she had been there . . . and lived. She shivered as the realization accosted her mind. She was just beginning to accept the fact that she had lived through the slaughter and lived, when another moral dilemma confronted her. If she was the only survivor, then she was also the only eyewitness. She was sure that that entailed going to a police station and confessing her sins, or something of that nature.

She had no real desire to talk to a detective or policeman. That's not to say she was afraid of them, or resented them in any way. She knew that policemen were good and that they helped you when you were in trouble. She had had this lesson drilled into her head time and time again, and despite what some other people thought about the city's finest, she had no reason to doubt it. However, going to the police meant a thousand complications she did not want to have to deal with. She didn't like talking to anyone she didn't know. She didn't even like ordering food at restaurants because of some irrational fear that the waitress would get angry at her. She certainly had no wish to be interrogated by a large scary policeman, which is what she was sure would happen, should she go to a station.

And the was still the matter of the man who's umbrella she was still in the possession of. He was a witness too, so he could always testify or whatever it was they did in cases where the defendant was already guilty . . . and dead. They really didn't need her, she hoped. She wondered where he'd gone after leaving his umbrella with her, and she also wondered how he had had the presence of mind to guide her halfway to work after seeing such death. Then she wondered how he had known where she worked in the first place.

These questions and others like them plagued her for the rest of her workday and most of the way home. She splurged and took a cab, as she had no desire to go back into the subway, and after paying the cabby, trudged up the stairs to her apartment.

She knew there was something wrong as soon as she opened the door. The light in the kitchenette was on, as well as the one in her bedroom. Gripping the umbrella defensively, she edged slowly into the living room and made silently for her bedroom. She steeled herself by the doorway and took a deep breath before tentatively poking her head into the room.

The room looked normal, except for the fact that the light was on. The book she was reading was still on her nightstand, and her silver hairbrush, the one truly expensive thing she owned, was still on her dresser. The rug was still matted, and the bed was made . . . the bed was made.

She paused for a moment and swallowed, trying to absorb the queerness of her situation. She was sure that she had left the sheets in the laundry room, to wash when she got home and she was certain that she hadn't made the bed before she left. She knew no one well enough for them to have come and done her laundry, and besides, the door had been locked. She had a brief and fleeting image of a burglar doing her laundry, but that image was so farfetched that she didn't entertain it for more than ten seconds.

She was still trying to rationalize the bed when she felt a light hand on her shoulder. She shrieked and jumped forward awkwardly. She would have certainly have fallen had an arm not gently encircled her waist and righted her. She found herself staring into the dark eyes of the man in the green suit.