I asked her if she’d had trouble sleeping through it and she said she’d been out pretty late herself, if I knew what she meant, and I did. I guess she and Rog had found a deer stand somewhere.

We ate a quick breakfast and began to set up the side room with coffee and the all-important bagels and helpful information. The full schedule of classes and workshops was underway and there was a first-day-of-school feel to the groups as they came into the conference center. I hoped there wouldn’t be any problems with Viridian’s workshop. She seemed to do better earlier in the day, before she grew tired. There was nothing I could do about it anyway; we were all at the mercy of brain chemistry. I was starting to settle into a mindset of numbness and dread, waiting for the next bad event, balanced with a nervous hope that it wouldn’t come.

We got through that first morning without anything too remarkable happening, except for the thin, waiflike older woman who plopped herself down in front of the bagels and ate six of them, one after another. She was to do this every day of the conference. Breakfast was free; all we could figure was that she really liked bagels.

Gil and I watched her making steady progress through the blueberry cream cheese and the peanut butter and the strawberry yogurt spread. “Orange juice?” Gil asked, handing her a glass, and the woman said thank you in her pipsqueak voice and drank it down. Then she hoisted a large book bag printed with a picture of a dolphin and took herself off.

Later, just before lunch, another woman stopped by and said that she had—she wasn’t sure it was a complaint exactly, more of a question? About her workshop with Mr. Rasz? It seemed that the instructor told them he was going to give them a writing prompt, something they were meant to write about. Then he drew a cross on the blackboard and stood in front of it with his arms extended for ten minutes. Then he had played his harmonica for a while. And her question was, Did this seem, she didn’t want to sound old-fashioned, but . . .was he making fun of them?

Tomas Rasz was an experimental writer whose last book had incorporated online links to recorded birdcalls. I said, “Maybe he wants you to have some fun with your writing. Be spontaneous. Try and get the reader’s attention.”

“The cross part was kind of offensive.”

“How was the harmonica?”

“Actually, not bad,” the woman said. “Maybe I could write something about harmonicas.”

“That’s the ticket,” I agreed.

The woman left and Gil said, “These people are disturbed. Seriously.”

“They’re artists. Art is supposed to shake things up. Change your perspective.”