During my time at the Deborah, I take a still-life drawing class and, through much practice, learn to sketch vases, bicycles, desk lamps, pinwheels, typewriters, throw pillows, and the like. I hone my artistic skills to become a more balanced individual. I will never be a gifted artist like Johnny, but I am now at least above average. Next I will graduate to portraits. The first person I will draw will be Johnny, once I complete my six-month stay.

Sadcons have the option of speaking to a counselor here, but I opt not to. I do not interact much with the other sadcons either. In any case, they are wary of me. They conclude that I am an unlucky friend to have, the same decision Esther has come to. When I feel lonely, I ask Albert Schmidt to play a game of chess. Dr. Schmidt, as he is called here, is good at his job as asylum manager because he does not push anyone to get better. His policy is to live and let live. He likes having all us sadcons around. He calls us his children. He is usually kind, but occasionally grows testy if he does not win at chess, so sometimes I lose on purpose.

I gain roof privileges from Dr. Schmidt after letting him win several games in a row. At first, I was denied them lest I throw myself off à la Willa Blake. Once on the roof, I sketch stars in my notepad and undertake the grueling task of mapping the night sky. My favorite constellation to date is shaped like an ankylosaur.

To keep busy, I also volunteer in the kitchen. I like doing dishes: it is calming to scrape away the remains of our meals and then soap up our chipped dishes and get them gleaming again. For some reason, Zig has not sent us a dishwasher yet. Perhaps we are not ready for that test.

I also enjoy peeling potatoes. I have even become adept at making sweet potato pie, like the one mentioned in Mother’s favorite song, Sarah Vaughan’s “It’s Crazy.” My secret ingredient is the Indian spice garam masala, which I found at the back of the Deborah’s pantry. I wish I could make my pie for the both of you. It is much healthier than the pizza pies you scarf down.

To keep fit, I do calisthenics in the courtyard with a Bicentennial sweatband wrapped around my forehead. Dr. Schmidt recommends exercise to combat sadness and confusion. When he spots us exercising, he pretends to be a drill sergeant and cries, “Hup, two, three, four! Hup, two, three, four!” Thankfully, he never attempts to touch us. No pats on the shoulder. No hugs. I think he, too, dislikes being touched. A nurse named Francine, who used to be hard of hearing in America and now still talks too loudly, once laid a hand on his back and he cringed.

Dr. Schmidt died in a school-bus accident. He and three other townies killed in the accident keep in touch and sometimes get together to play Mille Bornes in the games room. He is the grandson of a silent-screen star whose name eludes me since I do not even know the names of current movie stars. I believe, though, that the actress once played Jane in a Tarzan movie.

Even though I respect Dr. Schmidt, he will never become a best friend, not like the blendship I had with Johnny. After all, blendships are rare, as I am sure you two will agree, being in a blendship yourselves.

Johnny is still here in Town, resting in peace at the Sal Paradise Infirmary. His heart is still quiet. The do-good council is unsure what to do with Johnny’s body.

Townies sometimes slip into the infirmary to steal peeks at the famous “half-deader,” as they call him. Despite the nurses’ watch, some townies manage to touch his skin to feel how dry and cool it is. They run a fingertip around the circumference of his chest wound, which has dried but not healed.

I know all this because Czar told me so in a letter. He said he snuck into the Sal himself, and when he saw Johnny’s lifeless body and touched his chest wound, he decided to place a blue bauble necklace around my friend’s neck. “The poor bugger deserves some magic,” he wrote. “Maybe the topaz will kickstart his heart.” A noble position, I feel.

Other than Czar and Esther, I have had little contact with the outside world. I refuse other visitors, and now I say no even to Thelma and Peter Peter because I believe they, too, need a break from me. I write them to apologize. They write back, but I do not open that letter, or the later ones they send.

Many strangers also write me. I presume they are gommers. Dr. Schmidt tells me some gommers see me as a hero, while others see me as a nuisance for spoiling their bricking fun. I throw all these letters down the garbage chute unopened.

Esther Haglund does not write and, as she promised, does not visit. I do not write her either. I respect her decision. I miss her, though.

A month before my six-month stay ends, I move to the second floor of the Deborah. Several of my fellow patients and I apply for day passes to work as sorters at a nearby supply warehouse. Zig made an overnight delivery, and I have high hopes of stumbling on another clue from him or instructions—something like the bullets he sent me. I want to know how I should proceed from here because, honestly, I feel adrift. I need some direction to decide what I will do with the rest of my afterlife.

At the warehouse, I drag mattresses and box springs around, load lamps into grocery carts, stack desks on dollies, sort dozens of T-shirts according to size, and fill boxes with art supplies. While I work, I daydream that the warehouse is a portal that will teleport me back to Hoffman Estates, where I can visit you, Mother and Father. Silly, I know.

Some of the sorters pilfer belongings—I see a surly sadcon named Clementine stick a donkey marionette into her knapsack—but I do not steal a thing. In any case, nothing out of the ordinary comes my way that day or the other days I volunteer. Nothing curious. Perhaps I have lost my ability to discern.

Or perhaps Zig is telling me to find my own way, fly on my own angel wings, as it were (ha-ha).

One evening, while I sit on my bed at the Deborah and draw a still life of a scruffy one-eared teddy bear that once shared its life with Willa Blake, an idea pops into my head. I mull it over and decide it is indeed splendid. I know what I ought to do with my afterlife, and with the still life that is Johnny Henzel.

I immediately write Peter Peter in care of Curios. I apologize for my long silence. I ask for my old job back provided he can forgive me for stealing one of his curious objects (the revolver). I arrange to see him and Thelma on the Friday before the Monday of my release from the Deborah.

We meet in the art room, a neutral ground that Dr. Schmidt favors for get-togethers between sadcons and non-sadcons. On the walls of the room, I hang many of my still-life drawings because there is a link between them and the favor I will ask Peter Peter and Thelma.

They show up wearing matching straw hats tied with red ribbons, like those worn by gondoliers. Thelma goes teary-eyed and says, “My baby’s lost weight.” I tell her she knows as well as I that weight loss is impossible in Town unless a townie lops off, say, his own hand or foot. I tell her she has lost not a single pound since last I saw her, and she hugs her fat stomach tightly, which means she is hugging me.

Peter Peter has a gift for me in an oblong box that looks like the type that fountain pens come in. Inside is not a pen, however. Instead, the gift is a one-of-a-kind newly arrived curious object, a mercury thermometer that shows that the Deborah’s art room is seventy-seven degrees Fahrenheit and twenty-five degrees Celsius. Mercury, also known as quicksilver, is element No. 80, abbreviated as Hg.

“I want you to keep the thermometer till you return to work at Curios,” Peter Peter says.

“I am touched,” I tell them. “Touched in the sense of emotionally moved, not in the sense of slightly mad.”

Thelma shows me her gap-toothed smile. Peter Peter chuckles. These people do care about me. It is hard to imagine why at this point in my afterlife.

I tell them my splendid idea.