Signs

     Charlie in blue suit and striped tie swinging his briefcase slightly,walked through the fog on an unusually warm December to a five story apartment building of light brown brick and bay windows on W. 96th Street and pressed the intercom button marked D. Sign.
     Derrick rolled over searching for her warm soft skin, but woke to the faded smell of suntan lotion on the pillow next to him.  "Aw, Shit." he groaned. "She's gone." Has been gone for two months now.
     The bell rang an angry shriek again. Trembling and head circling, he heading the thirteen steps to the door, and pressed the intercom button.
    "Come up." he growled and flipped the lock open.
    The elevator being out of service Charlie headed up the stairs sweating from the climb and the strange December humidity.  Charlie knocked and the door floated open; inside was a moderately sized apartment with an open floor plan living area with a small kitchen and a hallway leading to other rooms. Shelves of books, leather bound volumes, ancient looking tombs and large art and photography books covered one entire wall.  The furniture was spare; a black leather sofa, a dinette set in the kitchen, and a aspidistra plant in the corner.
     Charlie, busy taking in the apartment didn't notice Derrick come out of the bathroom down the hall vigorously drying his face on a towel.
     "What? Are you with the IRS?"
     "Professor Sign, we talked on the phone, we had an appointment? Charlie Farmer with Forrest Insurance."
     "Right". Derrick moved to the sofa and sat hand holding his temples, moving head his head side to side cracking the bones in his neck and jaw. Running his hand over two days stubble and his shaved crew-cut.
     Charlie wondered why he got stuck with these assignments. Difficult clients who had to be visited at home. Charlie sat at the other end of the sofa and put his briefcase next to him; there was no coffee table.
     "OK Professor Sign, ah do you prefer Professor, Dr. or Detective?"
     "Whatever Chuck lets just get this thing over with." Derrick grumbled feeling his stomach churn with last nights gin and tonics.
      "Because we dealt with all the preliminary questions over the phone Prof. Sign I just have a few more things to clear up. We will be done quickly; I will get your signature and be on my way before you know it."
      "Right, shoot."
      "Do you use alcohol or tobacco?"
      "I have the occasional drink, and once in a while I will have a cigar."
      "OK, any family history of disease."
      "My mother was a terrible driver."
      "Excuse me?"
      "No none, are we done?"
      "How long have you've been blind?"
      "Twenty years but who's counting. Its only partial, I get around just fine."
      "Really, then what kind of hat am I wearing?"
      "Your not wearing a hat."
      "Good guess. But it says in your file that you lost your vision while still an officer for the NYPD. Correct?"
      "Your wearing a sensible blue suit and I think your girlfriend who wears a clean, flora perfume picks out your tie, so that is most likely striped and red for the holiday season. Your a insurance salesman so your clean cut but today you didn't shave because you were meeting a blind man. Your shoes are scuffed because you walk a lot to meet clients and you stepped in something on the way here. Your wearing a watch but its not working. And your sweating like a pig."
      "Wow, how the fuck did you do that."
      "Listen, I can tell you more. But right now I want to ask you a question."
      "OK Professor Sign."
      "What did you do with that green hat you stole- Mr. Farmer?"

Louise meets the Grey-Eyed girl.

     "Charlie she was trembling and gasping for air.  Walking up and down the aisles with this distant look in her eyes." 
      This often happened when the grey-eyed girl went to the library. Bright sunlight radiated the whole floor suffusing the air with an white tangible light. Her heart clawed, bumped and banged against her thin breast bone. "So many." she thought.  All goose flesh, the tiny gossamer hairs on her arms stood up. Whole body from crown to toe gave a cool shiver as she began pacing the stacks.   Turning her fingertips and delicately painted nails nervously over the spines, hand over hand, finger trading finger, she traced waves, up and down in long arcs.  Literature, philosophy, fiction, poetry, books of criticism and memoirs. Here Milton, Nabokov, Lusseyran, Rimbaud, Thoreau, so many, so much too read, too absorb, too relate to,commune with and learn, worlds to visit. Whole green rows of Loeb classics and red volumes of Tacitus; here dusty volumes of Keats, leather bound and shedding volumes of Dickens.
      "Charlie she was only a young girl probably around eighteen. Her eyes were large oval and piercingly grey. She had this wild hair, and was smiling like she just found an old friend."
     Her feet couldn't keep up with her thoughts as she stumbled around S in the literature section. Viewing the lions out of the window casting shadows on the street below. Waves of nausea washed inside her; she fell onto her knees vomiting.
      "Charlie I had to help her up, I grabbed her arm and tried to help. She looked sick but something else... I don't know... possessed. She pushed me away, and went to a worn wooden chair kneeling in front of it."
     "Darling what is the matter with you?" I told you not to get carried away."
     The women had deep brown hair that time had seeped the color from mixed with a steely silver. Burly and matronly she sat on the chair observing the grey-eyed girl. With dark eyes the woman appraised her.
      "You must learn to control these fits, people will see your weakness.  Come now child tell me what is wrong?"
     "I just can't take all this in at once." the grey-eyed girl got out between heaving.
     "Child it's already in you. Remeber a book is a book is a book is a book." the matriarch said.
    "Charlie, the light from the window was bright and yellow and I couldn't see. But I swear she sat in front of that chair talking to no one." Louise concluded.