"What happened to that front fender?" The mechanic had reentered unnoticed, his voice sending waves of shock through the silence which had settled. James was wrenched back into this world with a hardy shot of adrenaline. Sweat beads appeared along his brow despite the cold damp of the room. Fighting his suddenly racing heart, at last James answered:

"Some lady hit me in a parking lot."

"That happened in a parking lot! Jeeees', she must have been going fast."

A noncommittal "Yea," was all that James could muster, turning away from the mechanic, hoping the subject would be dropped. The truth was that James had no idea what happened to his front fender. He remembered being at McDonagh's Pub one Thursday night about eight months prior. James typically awoke fully clothed and with large gaps in his memory after an evening at McDonagh's but on the morning following that evening James also awoke extremely sore and with a pounding in his head the likes of which alcohol alone could not possibly have produced. After having made his way to the bathroom, James discovered the cut buried in dried blood and swollen over his right eye. Several hours later he noticed the damage to his car.