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This isn't working, he says. We doubt your commitment to the program.
 I am not sure what he refers too. I am sitting in a wooden chair.
We are both in a basement -- I see people's feet shuffle past the high,
narrow window.
I tell him that I don't understand. My body feels parched and
cracked. Something has occurred that took me apart and I am not sure I
have been reassembled correctly.
You will sit here and keep an eye on the bench outside, he says.
I see three people sitting on the bench. I ask him what is going on.
Listen, he says. You will inform us when the situation changes.
I hear footsteps above us, the variable drone of music. I ask the
man if he knows who lives upstairs, what is making all that noise.
It's not important. Watch the people on the bench.
I look up and out the window. The first occupant is stuffed in a
leather jacket. He slouches -- I see the dome of his shaved head rising
over his shoulders. The second is a woman, I think, older, in a
camel-hair coat.
At some point the man exits and I inhabit the basement by myself.
The third I can't be certain of. At first it was an old man in a
black overcoat, but now it is an obese woman. I search for an exit,
but find none. Something changed, I yell. I bang my chair against the
ceiling, but am startled to find that the noise from upstairs has
ceased.
I sleep on the cold floor. Days pass. The new three do not change.
There were fixtures in the room once: a boiler, a rack of
cleansers and rags, a bucket. They are gone now; only the window and
the bare room remain.
And now I notice how bright the sliver of sky has become.
The next day the people on the bench are erased by it.
Then the bench goes.
All that remains is a rectangle of light. The room is only a
border. Then the room is gone.
Something has changed, I say. When the sound leaves me I am
unsure of where it came from and where it goes.
Then I hear, Good, you are making progress.
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