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There’s no shuffling, animated corpse behind you, but the police *are*
starting to arrive. However, since there’s still a very high
run-away-like-a-scared-sheep quotient among the hapless park-goers, you
can’t imagine the police will take too much time out of their busy
schedules to chase *you*. Looking rather less like a suspect OR a
doughnut than many of the people running past you, you figure running
along with the pack won’t attract too much attention.

Well, there IS that attractive little jiggle when you run, but the cops
probably won’t notice THAT. You run after Ferdinand, doing your best to
manuever through the panicked crowd and past them. Once clear of them,
you’re pretty sure you’re faster than any punk with a nosering, and
should be able to catch him, once you can find him.

Fortunately, you’ve got a pretty good sense of smell. Having plunked
himself down in front of you like that, back in the restaurant, he’s
given you his scent... albeit in a far lesser way than if he’d touched
you (ick!), left you an item of clothing (ick!), or something to that
effect. And amid all of the other varied scents of the city -- some of
them fairly unpleasant -- it’ll be a bit difficult to keep hold of any
given scent trail. However, it’s your best shot.

You take a deep breath and pick his scent out almost immediately. Gee,
something seems to have scared him. Afraid of confrontation, perhaps?

You follow the trail successfully for several blocks -- he turned the
corner at every intersection, trying to stay out of your line-of-sight,
but to no avail -- before you lose it. You go up and down the street
several times, but the large pile of garbage rotting behind a snow drift
where the Sanitation department can’t (or won’t) get to it obscures all
other scents. You’ve lost him.

Sigh. Well, that was random. At least I've got something to
occupy my time now.

I turn around and head home. Studying awaits. *Much* studying
awaits. Staying a week ahead of the syllabus is useful for when life
becomes too... interesting... to study for a while, but it's hell at
the beginning of the semester, when I have to do doubletime. I make To
Do lists all the way home, and my nose is in quantum physics before the
apartment door slams shut behind me.

Three hours later, quantum physics is starting to make sense, which
is a sign that I need a break. I drop the book beside my futon and
make a few phone calls to friends in my seminar: "A bizarre guy tried
to pick me up today, and he seemed pretty determined. He's in our
class, buzz cut, nosering--do you know his name?" If anyone knows any
leads, I follow them, making it look like my interest is casual, then
search for him on the net in case he has a web page or a school
directory listing. What I really want is his name and address, a bit
of background info--major? family?--and whether he belongs to any
"weird" groups, i.e., groups interested in the supernatural.

Then more study. Physics, Kant, and my one gut course for the
semester--Asian Art. The Asian art book, piled atop the physics and
philosophy books, overhangs by three inches on every side and makes the
pile look like something Wile E. Coyote would smack into at speed.
Very artistic. I organize my study so that the books, placed atop the
pile as I finish with them, complete the effect.

I'm so proud of myself.

I contemplate my sculpture as I wash and soak rice for dinner.
Plain white rice is dull, but the refrigerator is empty, except for the
rows and rows of condiments which creep out whenever the food level in
the fridge drops below 200 calories. Did I buy all this stuff?
Ketchup, honey, ranch dressing, shredded ginger, soy sauce, oyster
sauce, Worcestershire sauce, brown sauce, plum sauce, garlic sauce,
peanut sauce, lobster sauce, sweet-and-sour sauce, and three kinds of
mustard.

Well, that settles it. I definitely didn't buy all of those
bottles myself. I hate mustard.

The bottles are crowded oddly today. Usually, they stand in long
rows around the edges of the fridge like gangsters in the West Side
Story, daring me to stick my hand inside. Today, though, they're
grouped up in the corner, looking almost... sheepish.

I gingerly pull a few bottles out of the huddle and see a flash of
silver. I snatch out my prize--a carton of lo mein. Ha! Thought you
could hide this from me, did you?

The only problem is, eating rice and lo mein together is like
serving mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes at the same meal. Eeeeuw.

I stick the carton back into the fridge, well away from the bottle
huddle. They're going to get cocky now. Damn.

If I had petty cash, I could get something from the corner store,
but lunch today wiped petty cash clean. I check one of my hiding spots
for the not-so-petty cash. Wow! $420! I'm rich! It's a pity that
rent is $500.

Sigh.

Tonight, I extemporize. Tomorrow, I go out and find some cash.
Unfortunately, all of the Elvis tickets are being sold over the phone,
so there are no lines to scour, and crowds aren't going to start
gathering outside the Madison Square Garden until Wednesday at the
earliest. I may end up living off five-fingered discounts from 7-11
for the next week.

I wonder if I can hit up Ferdinand for lunch tomorrow.

In a far corner of the fridge is an egg, which I drop into a cup of
water to see if it's any good. It doesn't float. Well, it kind of
doesn't float. It would pass in a witchcraft trial. When the rice is
done steaming, I convert half of it into fried rice and plop myself
down on the futon again with the bowl.

Philosophy next. Wittgenstein. I wish I was on about half of
whatever he was on. I work my way through numbered lists of Martian
existential calculus until my chin hits my chest.

A couple of minutes and three nasty dreams later, the alarm clock
starts yelling about something-or-other, and I scrabble to shut it off.
The Wittgenstein book tumbles off my lap and hits the book sculpture
with a bang, starting an avalanche. I hide my head in my arms as books
cascade over me. Another Monday morning.

Nuked rice for breakfast. I look for peanut sauce to shake over
it, but the sauces, offended by my snatching of their prize yesterday,
have slunk off to hide, and the only thing left is ketchup.

We must have *some* standards.

I clump the plain rice into a ball and eat it on my way to class.
In the lecture auditorium, I lurk in the back row until Ferdinand shows
up, then--a few seconds before the teacher starts speaking, when it's
hard to change seats again--I plop myself down right beside or behind
him. I give him a good three minutes to get all tense and itchy (or I
wait until he's about to say something), then pass him a note which
reads, "Where do you get off running from me?"

A minute later, after he's read the first note but before he has
time to answer, I pass him a second note which reads, "What were you
planning to do once you impressed me?"

You go home to prepare for your first week of classes, and to try to
take your mind off weird guys with metal sticking out of their faces
until you’re ready to deal with something other than your books. A few
hours later, you decide that you’d rather track down your stalker than
read one more word about superstring theory... ever. There’s such a
thing as being overprepared, anyway.

You call some of your classmates, asking about the weird guy from your
art class. You don’t say anything about lunch or the park, and you try
not to sound as though you’re *interested* in the guy, but you suspect
that every person you talk to has decided that you’re hot for the creep.
Ah, let ’em think whatever they want, though. It’ll keep them out of
your *real* business.

Unfortunately, three and a half weeks of vactation, and the world’s
greatest skiing EVER has largely eroded your friends’ memories. Nobody
knows him, or nobody remembers him. He’s the quiet guy who never shares
an opinion or joins a conversation. The only thing you get is a name,
which no one is 100% sure of: John McEnnis. Normal enough name for a
creepazoid, you suppose. But it’s always the normal ones, isn’t it?

You grab something to eat before it grabs you, get some more studying
in... and suddenly it’s morning. No wonder no one in your family ever
went to college before this -- this is a lot of work! Still, it beats
marrying rich men for their money. Sorta.

Well, maybe not. But you’ll never admit that to your mother!

You lurk in the corner until McEnnis shows up, then drop into the seat
behind him. You wait until the class has begun, so his attention is
divided between thoughts of you and Asian Art (also you), then drop the
note over his shoulder. He doesn’t react to the note other than to
unfold it and read it --

He nearly hits the lecture hall ceiling, which is a mighty good jump for
a white boy... especially one loaded down with a few extra pounds of
metal in sensitive spots.

"Something *wrong*, Mister McEnnis?" the professor asks from the front
of the room as everyone turns to stare, giggling.

There’s a brief pause before McEnnis answers.

"Nothing at all," he says flatly. "You may continue."

Wow, he really IS a jerk!

"Thank you," the professor says in an equally flat tone -- you’ll suffer
for this, it says -- and then continues with his lecture. He gets maybe
four of five more words out before he’s drowned out by the kid in the
second row, screaming his head off.

"STOP LAUGHING AT ME!" he bellows. "STOP IT! STOP LAUGHING!!"

Nobody is laughing. A few people look like they’re about to start
screaming along with him -- he’s getting pretty scary. He tears at his
clothes and hair, still shouting, then runs for the exit. He crashes
through the door and runs down the hall like half the population of Hell
had just dropped by to say hello.

McEnnis tosses a piece of paper over his shoulder, which lands on your
desk. Stunned, you unfold it and read the note he’s written. While
your classmate was having a freak-out of apocalyptic proportions,
McEnnis was replying to your note.

"I’m not running anymore," it says.