By Thursday afternoon, she was exhausted with the news coverage of Katrina and had moved from sad and concerned to angry as hell. Adrienne worked late again for the extra bucks and to fill her mind with other thoughts. Late Thursday night, watching ABC’s Nightline, she began to shout out loud “Amen-ing” Ted Koppel’s report of Katrina. Alone in her bedroom, with tears streaming down her face, all she could muster were the words “wow” each time Ted would ream FEMA’s ass one more good time she’d chant it over and over, “wow”.

***

Yes, staring at the black stranger, it was all becoming quite clear to her as she turned away from him for a private second to pull it together.

She had been exhausted on Friday night and left the TV on with it’s blaring coverage of Katrina disasters. By 4 a.m. she had clicked off the TV, full up of endless tales of sadness for the victims still there. Adrienne realized now that she was still asleep. As she turned back around to explain this to him, she found nothing there but the empty Lean Cuisine tray, water and juice bottles and a little dried mud where his shoes had been.

No wonder he never made the phone call. Adrienne went into a deeper sleep, hoping that when the man awakened on Saturday, he would feel refreshed from all of the food and liquids she poured into him and finally be saved.

***

On Monday morning, Adrienne sat down to another 30 or so email messages. She opened the one marked “urgent” first:

URGENT–FROM HUMAN RESOURCES: If anyone has seen any strangers walking the halls on Friday, please report it immediately to security—no persons other than employees are allowed on the premises.

And will the person who tracked up the corridor and left mud caked on the floor in the kitchen please refrain from doing so in the future. We like to run a clean office here at Fullofit.

Sincerely,

Human Resources

FULLOFIT LAWYERS P.C.

Adrienne smiled.