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In the bedroom, I go to the drawer near the window, nothing. I go to the closet near the door,
nothing. I look under the bed on the other side of the room, nothing. Nothing except a penny. I
reach for the penny and take it, and then I look at the year the penny was created. Every time I see
a coin I look at the year and understand that I am holding something that was around before me. If
it's old enough, of course.

This penny was created in 1947, one of the years that I've traveled back in time to visit. Not
literally, it was in a dream. In the dream I knew I was in a time that I didn't belong, which made it
even weirder. Looking around in 1947, I would have to say that the area I was in was one of the
most comforting places I had ever seen or visited. The only way I could explain it is by having you
compare a world that is full of toxins in the air versus a world that has virtually no toxins at all.

The clearness of the life. We will never be as wise and perceptive as we were when we were
children because we can no longer see things as clearly as we used to be able to. Decay slowly
consumed this life.

One thing that is all too common now is the destruction of perception by certain medical agents.
You take a pill, and it might fix certain things, but it might also break others. Some of the pills I
took destroyed my memory. Not to say I couldn't have dreams, but I couldn't remember them. A
sort of Dreamer's Block. Before that, there was a time when I actually believed there were things
that no one could ever take from us.

I take a quick glance into the bathroom. Pointless place to look but we all do it. I don't see any
books but I notice there is a fly sitting on the window. I walk up to the door and close it and
continue my search in the living room.

It's been eight minutes and I have searched the entire apartment and have not found a single new
composition notebook. That's when it hits me. Thoughts of Julia explaining what an epiphany is in
the use of literature, or writing. The thought of Julia reminds me that she no longer works at the
store, and that I could just purchase some notebooks there now. As I take a smiling step forward, I
have another sudden realization.

After I had found out she was working there, a few days after I went a few miles further to a
different store and bought fifteen composition notebooks that I later stored down in the basement
storage.

I open my front door and make my way down the first flight of stairs, and then down the second
that lead to the basement. As soon as I open the door I hear a box fall, and when I look inside I see
the first-floor man. Tall skinny fellow who does not talk much. I notice he is putting something
into his storage section and as I pass by I see something that looks like a fragment of a bone, but I
can't be certain.

I open up my storage, the combination number is 31, 17, 16, just in case you ever needed
something, and then I take out one of the composition notebooks. That fresh smell. By that time the
first-floor man is gone and as much as I want to look inside his storage, I don't. He is strange