"If these don't work, there'll be no-fee," I told him.
I took three of the stronger pills that night, turned off the light and lay back in bed, waiting for sleep to come and get me. The antiseptic odor of the Medical Center recalled itself, but nothing else happened, and I was still waiting to go to sleep when I woke up next morning. No dreams of a breakfast I couldn't eat, no dreams at all. I had been smelling the memory of formaldehyde and just slid off to sleep. I could still smell it, for that matter, as if it were coming from the slightly open bedroom window. I looked up.
"Hallo," said the tall skinny man in a doctor's coat on the window sill.
"Hallo yourself," I said. "Go away, I'm awake."
"Yes, you are. At least I assume you are. But I'm not."
I sat up and looked at him, and he obligingly turned his head to profile against the brightness of the window. He had a sharp, beaky face that was familiar.
"Haven't we met somewhere?" I asked.
"Certainly," he said, in a slightly affected voice.
"Well?"