Eyes twittering, neck craning, arms flapping fluttering, quick stutter of feet across the damp floor, Ian wakes with the birds.

He gulps down some cold coffee and walks stiffly down to the beach. High tide. A cormorant shape. Ian strips and hops down from the breakwater into knee-high water. He closes his eyes, cups some water in his hands and lets it fall over his head: a baptism, a flight from darkness, a flight from dreams. He dives down, swims for as long as his breath will allow, surfaces, dives and swims again. Does it again. And again. Cold as salvation, predestination, freedom ... home.

Ian drips dry and watches the sun rise over the island. The cormorant assumes substance. Ian dresses reluctantly and walks back to the house. He eats a megavitamin and drinks the last of the coffee. He makes another pot, drinks half of it and turns on the radio. More talk of the hurricane. Hysterical voices. One survivor saying "I was swept away by a torrent of water. I tried to swim, but couldn't. Somehow - just as I thought I was going to drown - I was able to grab onto a limb of a large tree. I pulled myself out of the water and sat on that limb all night. There were times I thought the tree was going to be swept away with everything else. It was a miracle."

Driving through streets mostly deserted. Beauty of silence; beauty of light before color, beauty of substance before shadow. A church spire, trees, stones. A sense of floating.

Seeing Brian standing by the lamppost at the all-night doughnut shop, Ian checks his watch. Ten minutes before Sara arrives to relieve him. Once, Ian had asked Brian about the significance of the vigil. Puzzlement and silence. Scorn.

Ian walks across a large patch of lawn. Scattered azalea. Seeing Marian sitting on a stone bench, he stops.

"You haven't been here all night, have you?"

"No." Tears in her eyes. "Ian, I'm worried about you." A mother cries for someone, sometime.

"Thanks, but don't worry. I'm alright. I thought we were going to talk about Susan. How's she doing?"

"She was committed last night."

"Shit. That's too bad ... So what finally made you do it?"

"It wasn't really my decision ... Peter brought her in unconscious. An overdose of barbituates. The person who pumped her stomach said it was a fatal dose ... They called me about two this morning ... I've been here since about four ... "

"Jesus, I'm sorry."

"Sorry for who, Ian? Her? This is what she does. You know that as well as me."

"No, sorry for you. Sorry that it's you that has to deal with her now. Sorry that it's not over for you yet."

"Is it over for you?"

Ian's eyes bug out. He watches a mosquito. 'No ...'

"I asked you if you've really let her go yet ... "

"I heard you. I did my best. You'll do yours. But no matter what anyone does, someday she's going to do it."

Marian touches Ian on the arm and looks squarely into his eyes. "I don't believe you. If there's enough love ... "

"How long can you give her that?"

"As long as she needs it."

"What about when she leaves here? What then?"

"I don't know Ian. What then?"

A vow of silence? A horn honks.

'Is that the best you can do?'

Ian glances at Marian. She sits, eyes closed, hands folded in her lap. His eyes harden to flint. He looks for Susan but finds the old lady with the wine bottle sitting against the ivy-choked trunk of a white oak.

'That's the best you can do?'

Flint to softer quartz to clay to wetness at the edges of his eyes, 'Who are you? No ... I don't want to know ... Just go away.'

Marian stands, "As I said, I'm worried about you. I don't know what I can do but I'm here if you need me." She gives Ian a long hug, strokes his head. (Ian goes somewhere, elsewhere.) Then, "I've got to go see Susan now" and she walks away, head bowed.

Sweat runs down Ian's forehead, collects in his eyes, runs down the gulleys of his nose and drips from his chin to his lap. "Too damned hot." he mutters. The white oak creaks. 'And what the hell do you want?'

The old woman titters 'Who am I? Who am I?' and swills at her bottle. She staggers toward Ian. 'She cares about you ...'

'What the hell do you know!'

'... quite a lot. You know that she does.'

A wind shift? Heat drift, moisture change? Ian says 'I suppose.'

'That's all? No, Ian. You know.'

'Go away ... '

'And then what? You just go on as you are?' Suddenly too close, 'Courage, Ian ... '

'No! Enough of this. I won't ...' He lurches across the lawn, his shadow a monstrous form waiting for him to fall.

Mesmerized by his shadow, he bumps into Daniel, who steadies him as he totters. Instantly Ian springs back.

"Hey, I've been hoping to run into you. You got time to talk now? Want to get some coffee?" Daniel - the Greek God. Pity the neglected statue. Once a coordination of light and stone, mind and body. But the significance has been forgotten, the marble weathered down by dark, by water,

by the heavy dirty air to reveal wrinkles and pits, sags and pouches. Bald intelligence.

Ian does not refuse. He follows Daniel through the wide underground tunnel that runs to the cafeteria. Heating pipes run the length of the ceiling. Paintings on both walls. Paintings that intimate Munch as a painter of joy.

"I wanted to ask you about the Hearings."

"I don't know any more than you do."

"But you were there, weren't you?"

"Yes, but only because Paul wanted me to. I haven't really paid attention. To be honest, I haven't really wanted to know. I didn't even know about yesterday's death until ..."

"What death?" Daniel's eyes blaze. "Don't tell me ..."

"Someone on the south ward hung himself. Despite being on S-watch."

"You're not serious! Whose patient was it?"

"I don't know."

Sam comes over and passes a note to Daniel. Daniel glances at it, nods, stands and announces that he has to go.

Sam sits down opposite Ian. "You look terrible - like you haven't slept for nights on end."

"I haven't, not well anyway." Catching himself, "But I'm alright. What was that note about?"

"Warren wanted to see him."

"What about?"

"I don't know."

Ian's eyes narrow slightly. "You've heard about the suicide on the south ward?" Sam nods. "Do you know whose patient that was?"

"Mine."

"Yours!"

"That's right." Sam measures Ian, goes on, "You really didn't know?"

"No. Do you mind telling me about it.

"You won't tell anyone else? Paul's concerned about the press, you know."

"I'll keep it to myself."

"That means Timothy too."

Ian measures Sam, 'presumptuous, paranoid ... exploitative?', then says "I know."

"He's been here for two months . - I'm surprised you haven't heard about him. -" Ian shrugs, holds one hand out, palm up. "Anyway, he was young. About thirty. Blue, penetrating eyes ..." Sam rubs at the soft spot in his temple, sighs. "He believed he was Christ, the ward was Golgotha. He screamed all the time - forgiving us for what we had done, what we were still doing to him. "

"Yeah, I guess I have heard about him but I thought he was doing better."

"He was. Some. He calmed down, became very withdrawn. But it wasn't long before he started talking again, mixing with the others ... I heard - after the fact - that he was saying that he hoped to be released soon - I should have seen it coming ...

"But you kept him on S-watch?"

"No. He was never on S-watch. "

"There's a rumor going around that he was."

"What!? Who's saying that?"

"It doesn't matter."

"It does too!" Sam's fingers crush a styrofoam cup. Trickle of coffee from the tendons, and the knucles - white and shaking.

"Keep it to yourself, Ian."

'Exposed.' Ian nods, says "I said I would."

Ian buys himself two more cups of coffee, downs them, buys another cup, downs it, sits back down at the table. He drifts: a fog about a water, a leaf on a cool dry breeze, the eye at the cottage window distressed by the purity of snow ... and when is the time of innocence? And where? And the end of that ... the end ... Ian's head falls to one side. He jerks himself awake.

At another table, a convocation of patients.

"So, Kramer finally did it."

"It was only a matter of time."

"I know. He told me."

"Told me too."

"You think, maybe, he wanted us to know so that ..."

"We would stop him? No. He wanted us to know that he was sane when he chose to do it, and that he was sane when he did it too."

"Maybe, I don't know. But I guess if he wanted us to stop him he would have told us."

"Right, and he didn't. But remember, the most important thing is, he chose it. More power to him."

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