Written April 29, 2006

The unrestrained wave of emotions was new to her. People were sobbing, wiping away tears. Or worse, they sat quietly with their heads down, a million things that should have been said dying unspoken. But she felt no remorse
She watched him soak up all of the emotion, and it made her want to scream with rage. He looked so peaceful up there, so unconcerned, so... surreal. She wished he would move, or do something equally unexpected. That would be more fitting for him. A bullet lay beside him, and some of the guests were apalled. She knew he would have liked it that way. What she didn't know, was why.
As she stared evenly at the corpse of Daniel E. Freedman, a man she knew nothing about, questions hurled themselves through their mind. Had she known him? Had they perhaps shared a coffee, gone on a date? Did they work together once? Attend high school together? He seemed so familiar... The emptiness inside her deepened. Some sort of emotion should be there, she thought, but what?
Largely ignored by the man's large family, she sat in the last pew of the church, wondering who he had been. A moment longer, and then, springly from her seat, she quietly slipped out a side door and into a dark alley. Who he might have been was irrelevant. It was who she was that concerned her. She stared into the blossoming darkness. She had not known his name. But neither did she know her own.
...............
That night, the girl slept on the doorstep of an old bakery. When the owner arrived the next morning, he was not pleased with the positioning, and she found herself being shooed to a homeless shelter down the street. As she arrived, they were just beginning to serve breakfast. She glanced around... but no, none of it looked familiar to her either. She turned to leave, but an elderly volunteer shoved a tray of food into her arms and bustled away to deal with the others who needed food. She sat and began to eat, barely tasting the food. It made her think. Maybe I don't like any of this food, she mused. Or maybe I'm allergic. That would figure.
She smirked at her plate, and a raspy voice asked, "What's so funny?" Startled, she looked up and was halfway out of her seat when she realized that there was no need to run. The question came from an old, portly man sitting a few seats to the left and across from her at the same picnic bench. She noticed a flowing white beard and twinkling blue eyes that reminded her at once of Santa Claus, but looking more closely she noticed that he had several teeth missing and wore an old fleece jacket covered in grime.
"Nothing," she mumbled back. "I was just thinking that I don't know if I like any of the food that we've been so graciously served today." The sarcasm bit hard, but ever since she had woken up, it had been inevitable. The man laughed.
"Ain't nothin' we kin do 'bout that, little lady. But I's inclined to agree wit yeh, t'ain't nothing special." He slid his tray closer to her position at the table, and reached out an old, mangled hand. "Call me Joe." She gave what she hoped was a winning smile and reached out a hand of her own to shake.
"Beth. Call me Beth."