The Universe's Mixer

He'd left the meeting with Willow and the ghost with an odd feeling resting on his shoulders. What he'd been told, that secret that the wolf girl had bent down to whisper into his ear hadn't been something he'd expected to hear, and he wasn't sure how to take it.

Dexter wasn't sure that George would understand any more than he did, but he felt like she needed to know.

Returning to his apartment was logical because that's where he'd left her. She wasn't there, of course. Or wasn't there and responding to him. Maybe she already knew and she was pissed off about it. But he felt like she was gone. He felt like he couldn't feel her there and had before.

"George?" He did call her name while roaming the rooms just to be sure. Got no answer just like he'd expected.

The only thing to do, and probably the best thing to do considering the fact that he couldn't see her, was just to sit and wait. To stare at the flour and hope that she made some kind of mark showing him that she was there. Soon.

The shift was over, so it seemed. People were calmed. The hospital was less busy now. House was missing. He had very little to keep him tied to the hospital. It seemed like the burden of the diagnostic wing was placed on his shoulders, but there wasn't nearly as much work to be done as House had made it seem. Apparently, all the talk of paperwork and response letters was bogus. The things that Hannibal found on the desk that had previously belonged to the good doctor amounted to maybe an hour or two a day. If that.

He didn't get steady cases in, either. One a week at most. Some weeks, nothing.

So with the lack of everything, Hannibal found himself with free time he wasn't at all accustomed to.

River had shows, and practice to keep her busy. There was no way that he could go to everything. Some of the events, he wasn't allowed in to. Like dress rehearsals.

The park had him bored after not too long. Nothing exciting ever happened.

So today, today Hannibal headed down to the docks. The waterfront. Perhaps today he would find something new. Somebody new.

It was an insightful article by Ms. Hylie, presenting a brave face in an atmosphere of prevailing chaos. Ever since the shift they have been trying to impose a structure in this place, or go on with the show, only with half of the characters gone. They insist on keeping records - archives and police reports - so that memories may be passed on, touched, and locked in a filing cabinet safe from the ravages of mass-amnesia.

I set the City Voice down on my desk and look out the window. None of those people out there understand this place the way I do, especially the pawns. You almost grow to hate them at times, the ones who walk through life half-asleep, content to be a function of collective forgetfulness, accepting whatever bland reminiscences sputter along behind their dead eyes. I used to envy them when I worked for the Strangers. At least they have a sense of self, even if I gave it to them.

The people who were brought here, on the other hand, the ones with memories of other places, seem to burn like torches through a dim fog. I find myself clinging to their humanity - the small gestures of kindness, genuine expressions of emotion - smiling to myself as if I am gazing at the seeds of a bright future. Real memories glow behind their eyes, and the envy almost cripples me. I rub the heel of my hand against my sternum, encouraging my fluttering heart into a regular beat.

Is there such a thing as too much memory? If so, this place suffers from it. It accumulates and congeals into buildings and park benches, a geographical pastiche extracted from the minds of its inhabitants. It is democratic and anarchic at the same time. These days the buildings seem more solid and grandiose somehow, as people cling to their memories with more ferocity than ever. At least they appreciate what they have.

It occurs to me that I am like the City - an extractor and artisan of memories, but with none of my own. Every day we are re-set, reborn, reconstituted out of an unselfconscious void. I am the silent witness of a world trying to recall itself.

I decide to initiate contact.

"I know. you are listening. We need. to talk."