Alone in a strange bed, Eola makes men out of Kleenex to protect her from invaders. Some of them she puts on the nightstand and the footboard; others she gives Kleenex parachutes and tosses toward the periphery.

The Kleenex men cut silk and secure the LZ with Q-Tip rifles. The dust is cohering into hunched and leaning shapes, boiling at the edges, burning blue eyes in the corners and under the chair. The Kleenex men draw together, sweating.

The boiling dust monsters don’t understand their hunger. They advance with open arms, needing more, needing anything, needing not to be alone.