Owen toured the downstairs—the kitchen, the bathroom, a disheveled bedroom. The place was poorly taken care of. There were dishes in the sink, and dust balls as silent as Owen rolled along the wooden floor of the hallway. He wondered why he’d decided to invade the man’s house. What he found was a life as lonely as his own, though not as neat, which he wasn’t sure counted for anything. Instead of wonder, he’d discovered a shabby reality.

There was one more room at the end of the hall. A light from inside streamed out into the dark through the sliver of door that was ajar. Inside the room he could faintly hear the sound of rhythmic, raspy breaths, or perhaps some mechanical device laboring steadily away. He was intrigued enough to pass through the door. In front of him was a bed holding an emaciated woman. She was dressed in red satin pajamas and had a green kerchief around her head. She slept peacefully, breathing in and out with the help of a machine standing next to the bed. There was a plastic mask covering her mouth and nose with a tube attaching it to the device. A small table in the corner of the room was crowded with pill bottles and a vase containing a red rose. Although Owen really couldn’t see what she looked like, he saw enough of her cheeks and forehead to see her color was ashen.

At her feet lay the “menacing” pit bull with his head resting tenderly upon her ankles, breathing in time with the breathing machine. Owen felt his emotions well up—first, surprise at the unexpected nature of what he discovered behind the walls of the house; second, his heart went out to the dog and the man and the poor woman. He knew now why the fellow didn’t want kids hanging out making a racket on the sidewalk, and why he was always too preoccupied to wave back or say hello.

Owen heard the heavy steps of the home owner in the hallway behind him. He felt a burst of panic in his chest, forgetting his invisibility. Turning quickly, he looked for a place to hide. A pale blue arm aglow like Owen’s appeared from out of the center of the closet door in the corner and motioned for him to follow. Just as his neighbor entered the room, he stepped through the closet door. In the dark, he saw the other sleeper pass through the wall of the house and out into the night. He followed.

At the back of the property two houses down, just in front of a line of tall hedges, the dimly glowing sleeper sat at an old picnic table. Owen drew cautiously closer until he could make out it was the woman he’d met at the cemetery the previous night.

“We meet again,” he whispered.