Before Ander could make up his mind, the curtain was yanked back. It was D'Misse. She was back from the dead. She was looking healthy and angry and irritated that he had bothered her. Somehow, a towel appeared from nowhere and covered her body from knees to shoulders; her hair became a gravity-defying cone of cotton. At this point, Ander consciously thought â this is a dream. Which he then thought was rather strange for a dream, and more so that he protected her modesty so determinedly in his subconscious.
She lunged at him. He almost passed out inside his passed out hallucination.
He stumbled back, tried to turn. She said something like "Stop worrying so much," and then she repeated, and it was clearer: "Don't worry, don't always be so damn concerned."
Ander's throat felt strange. "I didn't think I worried too much," he mumbled.
"Oh my gosh, just stop worrying."
Ander was by now crawling, heading for the sanctuary of the bedroom where there was light and other people.
"Why don't you stop worrying?" the figure said. Ander couldn't make any sense of this. He flicked his head round as he crawled to see, to check again, if it was D'Misse, and it surely was, there floating, looking like she was swooping towards him, yet there not being enough space or distance in which to swoop.
"D'Misse. You know what? I'm sorry. I'm really sorry."
"Oh hell, forget about it. What did I just say?"
At last, Ander made it to the bedroom door. "I'm not really a worrier. I'm not sure I know what you mean..." And then he was inside the room. The figure had hands on hips and the faux-sarcastic look Ander was used to when D'Misse was just kidding. It was so familiar, so her.
Aftermaking one last enigmatic plea to Ander to worry himself less, he shut thedoor. Lady Zhao was standing over him looking exceptionally disheveled. Shetold him to get into bed and stay there and gave him a kick in the ribs. Sheturned off the light, but sometime later in Ander's pseudo-cognitive state, henoticed it went back on.