The Storage Space simply couldn’t tolerate Irwin Le Grand Rat a moment longer.  It would have screamed at the top of its lungs, if only a building could…

An intruder!

Out back with all the bags of trash.  The bags of trash that appallingly inadequate Irwin hadn’t taken to the dump yet.  Including the bags with that Frank’s body parts in them, which Irwin had actually used to conceal some other bags that presumably contained something even more dreadful or incriminating.

No one but Irwin was ever out back; it wasn’t possible for anyone else to gain access.  Yet this man wasn’t Le Grand Rat!  Perhaps…were it even possible…this intruder was an even grander rat.

Tall, clad quite literally in rags that whirled around him like a thick fog.  Tattered hood concealing most of his face.  The poor long-suffering Storage Space strongly suspected he smelled even worse than all the garbage combined.

But there was something peculiar about what little was visible of his face.  That goatee was rather impeccably groomed for a bum.

He was going through the garbage bags, one by one.

Again it was strange that he tossed aside a potpourri of fresh food in one bag.  Any self-respecting bum should have been delighted!

He started opening the first bag with Frank’s body parts.  The Storage Space would have held its breath, if only a building could…

What?  The bum tossed what was obviously part of a human leg aside without the slightest reaction.  Other bags of body parts got the same treatment until he got to Frank’s head.  The bum was about to toss that aside, too.  But suddenly he caught sight of Frank’s face and did a double take.  Then he slapped a hand to his forehead, knocking the tattered hood off to reveal a look of almost comical disbelief.  Next he sank into a seated position, completely ignoring the gore and garbage in which he sat and still held Frank’s head.

“How could I?” the bum asked aloud, addressing Frank’s head.  “How could I have thought…”  He bowed his head before looking back up at Frank’s head with tears in his eyes.  Then he looked back at Irwin’s whole collection of garbage bags, face hardening, before springing to his feet.

Like greased lightning he put everything he’d tossed aside back in its garbage bag, cleaning up all evidence that he’d been there.  Then he stood back, squinting at the arrangement he’d recreated accurately with the bags of Frank’s body parts shielding some of the other bags.  Frowning, he opened one the concealed bags, carefully digging beneath the unremarkable trash on the top till he pulled a neat bag of ripped-up paper from the bottom.  Wiping his hands clean on his clothing first, he delicately pieced together some of the ripped-up papers.  His first reaction was dumbfounded shock.  His second was a huge, evil grin.

Atta’ girl! 

Frank pulled his misty-green punch, intended for the guy with the misty-green sword that was only a stage prop, and used it to highlight the open water bottle that butcher Irwin had left behind.  Karen should probably get some fluids in her first after all that blood loss, before she went for the French fries.

The only-a-stage-prop sword, blunt as hell and inexpertly swung, hurt like hell.

But how could that be?  What the fuck!  Frank knew he was dead.  Nothing could have made that clearer than watching that fucking butcher Irwin carve his body up with a fucking chainsaw.  Frank looked down.  The only-a-stage-prop sword had cut him in half at the waist.

How was that possible?  What the fuck were the physics of being a green mist?

Frank headbutted the other guy, but his head just passed through the other guy’s head…

Switzerland.  1898.  Yearning.  For a woman.  A flurry of men in top hats, women in long skirts, and horses whinnying and clamoring over cobblestones.  Couldn’t find her.  Agony.  Fucking bonkers.

Then Frank’s head came out behind the other guy’s.  And the other guy seemed to wither and finally slink away, out of Karen’s storage unit, like a green snake.

Karen…

Frank swirled around Irwin’s open water bottle again, doing all he could to attract Karen’s attention to it.

No fan of that fuck Irwin.  Had appreciated the other green mist’s sharing Frank’s outrage when Irwin cut up Frank’s body.  But Irwin had done two things right.  He hadn’t noticed Karen wedged in the back of her storage unit, or who the fuck knows what he would have done with her.  Good thing he hadn’t bothered to clean up Frank’s blood inside her storage unit, just the hall.  And he’d left his water and lunch just inside her storage unit.

Karen’s outstretched hand shook and dropped.  She couldn’t reach the water.  Fucking A!

The physics of being a green mist…  Could Frank move it closer?  He balled himself up and tried.  Nothing happened.

Karen’s eyes closed again.  She was going to fucking die.

He had to.  He fucking had to move that water bottle.

A monster truck rumbled over a monster pothole just outside, reminding Frank for a moment of how his crazy partner Alex drove.

Karen’s eyes fluttered open as the water bottle moved an inch closer to her.  Had Frank done it or the truck?

Karen reached, shaking fingertips threatening to knock the bottle over when she made contact, then passed out again.

A thought cut through Frank far more painfully than that blunt sword.  It was:  Karen, how could I?  Frank fucking had to move that water bottle.

Something happened Frank didn’t understand at all.  For a moment he wasn’t in Karen’s storage unit anymore.  He was home, inside her, the first time they made love.  Then he was back in her storage unit.

The water bottle, the French fries, and even Irwin’s sandwich were within Karen’s reach.  Slowly, very slowly, she managed to eat and drink some.  Woozy as hell, she got confused and dipped a French fry not into the ketchup but into a huge glop of Frank’s blood on the floor.

Frank wasn’t sure what to think, watching her struggle to get that French fry dripping with clumps of his blood into her mouth.  Much-needed protein?  What the fuck.  Wasn’t doing him any good any more.  He swallowed heavily, then thought, eat up, baby.  It’s the very least I can do for you.

She wrinkled her nose and licked her lips thoughtfully, before her eyes widened in horror.

Uh oh, thought Frank.  She’s figured it out.  It’s okay, he thought at her desperately.  It’s okay.  He had trouble with the next words; they weren’t words he thought often, no matter what he felt.  But they burst out of him:  “I love you!”

The word he then saw burst out of her, however, was the only word capable of destroying a love even death hadn’t ended.  It was, “Martin!”

Karen felt something, a weak fluttering under her cool, clammy skin.  Fast.  Was that…her pulse?  Her eyes seemed to be open.  Through swirls of green mist, she thought she saw the fingers of one hand resting on the inside wrist of her other.  Was it minutes, hours or days later?  Karen was so confused, and grasping for breath.

The green mist swirled, hypnotic, adding to Karen’s dizziness and nausea, even though she was lying down.  Still, weakly, her stomach also grumbled with hunger and she smelled something.  French fries.

And ketchup?  And something else, something metallic…

Her hand…  Had the bleeding finally slowed?

Karen tried to flip her hand over to check, only to be met with waves of wooziness.  Silence.  She was alone in the back of her storage unit with no phone.  Karen opened her mouth and screamed for help but couldn’t even hear it herself.

Was it already too late?  Even if the hand she was too weak to flip over had finally stopped bleeding?

A summer’s day…

Half the green mist now swirled around Karen’s face.  Sunlight sparkled through it.  Karen’s eyes closed.  She saw a summer’s day with flowers starting to bloom as a man’s elegant and melodic voice spoke of “the darling buds of May.”

Light!  The light became so bright, and Karen longed for it so.  She strained to reach it, to reach the sun, her feet seeming to leave the earth behind her.

“No, Karen, no!”

Frank’s voice pulled her back.  Her eyes fluttered open.  Two separate green mists seemed to be at war with each other in front of her.  Karen struggled for breath.

French fries.

Karen’s fingers twitched.  It seemed all she could do.

Ketchup.

Her stomach heaved with nausea, but then it grumbled.  Ever so slowly, Karen slid her arm across the floor.