"Don't worry, George. Just rest. You'll be all right."
How—where am I?
"Just rest," she repeated, and then she was gone. George thought about her for a long time, before dropping off to sleep.
It was a cold night, and lonely, for George Jameson. He paced the floor of his apartment, back and forth, into the kitchen, into the hall, through the bedroom, back and forth.
"God!" he said, although there was no one there to hear him. "Two years! And where am I?"
Angrily, he reached for his coat. Maybe some fresh air would do him good. He buttoned the coat, fumbled for his overcoat.
Then he walked outdoors.
It was snowing. The clean, white, slippery kind of snow that stays for a while, then quickly turns into Chicago slush. Instinctively, he turned his collar up against the cold, and headed for the El, a sentimental relic of the 20th century just past.
The snow was coming down in big, lazy flakes that caught themselves in the wind and buffeted against his overcoat. Streetlights cast weird shadows across the white. George could hear the faint crunch-crunch his shoes made. Half-turning he looked at his tracks behind him.