Over the next month, I couldn’t stop thinking about Cindy Lou. It would have been easy enough to dismiss the whole thing as an hallucination, but there was that $50 charge on my credit card, and besides, there were some changes I couldn’t ignore. I had heartburn a lot less often, for one thing, and my lactose intolerance completely disappeared.

And my appetite had changed. I had started eating healthier food—including active culture yogurt—and I had started eating considerably more of it, though it never showed on my waist. “Bacteria, hell,” I muttered to my gut. “A tapeworm, that’s what you are.” I was rewarded with one of those odd little gurgles that might have been a giggle, or might just have been gas.

My mind just kept coming back to Cindy Lou. Quite apart from the GaIA thing, she actually had been quite attractive. I wondered if it was true, what she’d said about dying outside of my body, and how long she could safely stay out. I wondered if she’d go out with me.

The month went by very slowly.