I tried to review what had happened. I was in the little kitchen area at the office. I had been reaching for a paper cup. Someone had placed a coffee mug with a broken handle on the shelf beside the bundle of paper cups. I had mistaken where my hand should go, and the jagged end of the mug’s broken handle had gashed the top of my hand. I stared down at the unbelievable blood, the redness, and nothing was muffled. You were there. You had been working with me for months, and I never paid you any particular attention before. Now you were sympathetically helping me, leading me unresisting into the women’s bathroom, with some words of warning as we came in. That was where the first aid kit was kept, and you knew that. You washed my hand.

“Let me wrap it for you,” you said.

You bound up the wound. It was your alarm, your compassion, the pain you felt on my behalf, that startled me out of my dream. That was why I noticed my pain. The pain was unpleasant, of course, but you saved me from obliviously walking around the office with blood dripping from my hand. As I imagined this, I had to imagine also the upset and confusion that would have created. No one just walks around dripping blood, that’s true. I would have smeared it on the paperwork. There would have been questions. The prospect of answering questions shouldn’t have alarmed me, but it did, in fact, the idea alone frightened me, quickened me, sent adrenaline to my stomach. I was awake again, in the old way, in the middle of the workday, afraid, in pain—but you were there, looking me in the eye with stunning compassion. You were what woke me up, not the pain or the fear.

“You look a little green,” you said. “Maybe you should go home.”