"And Megan's father—do you still see him?"

"Absolutely. We're engaged." Karen smiles at Richard over Gloria's shoulder. Gloria gives an appropriate smile reaction, then says, "Cut!"

Gloria unclips her mike and bolts toward a door where the minions cower. "Why the hell didn't we know about this? Who researched this—Anthea? Get her on the phone now. No—she's in 213, not 310. We're going to have to retake the intro. Is the weather going to hold?"

There's panic for the next ten minutes, and then Gloria returns."Speed and—" Clack! "Rolling—" Gloria turns into "Gloria" instantly, like a plugged-in appliance. "Karen, so you're engaged now?"

"Indeed I am."

"Will we be able to meet… him?"

"I think not. He's far more private than I am."

"What's his name?"

"Richard."

"So Richard waited all these years for you? All these decades, your one love waited?"

Karen pauses. Her eyes begin to mist up—damnit! She fell into Gloria's trap of tears. "Yes"—sniffle—"he did." Now her eyes flood. Gloria heaves a relieved breath and knows this will be a dynamite kicker.

"Gloria," calls a technician, "we lost the sound on that one. We have to redo the take."

Gloria mutters a curse and the process begins again in a startlingly machinelike process: "Karen, so you're engaged now?" Gloria bats the eyes: blink blink blink.

"Yes."

"Will we be able to meet… him?"

"No."

"What's his name?"

"That's private."

"Very well. So your boyfriend waited all these years for you? All these decades your one love waited?"

Karen pauses. "Yeah. He did." No tears. Gloria is furious.

How many of us have a love so true it spans eternity? A purity of need so clear it can remain strong in the face of all that the world throws at us? This is Karen Ann McNeil, the woman who fell to Earth, the woman for whom the people in her life never gave up waiting.

"What about your friends, Karen? How do you feel to see them all aged seventeen years overnight? Do you still hang out with them?""They're my life, really. Them and my family. If they weren't here, I don't think I could handle the world." Karen is disgusted with the platitudes she's dishing out. She sounds to herself like a Miss America contestant allowed out of the soundproof booth and given thirty seconds to answer questions that will, to a large degree, define future directions of her life.

Gloria looks peeved. We need more drama. A woman named Randy comes over; she and Gloria have a hushed discussion over notes on Gloria's crisp red lap. Pam powders Karen's face. "How's it going, Kare?"

"I think I'm a dud. And they're furious about losing the crying scene."

Karen thinks over what Pam blurted out in the car the other day— about how people expect her to be a thousand years old now, not just thirty-four. She knows this is what Gloria wants to get at.

"Karen—" Gloria returns. "Let's just do a few more questions. This must be tiring for you."

"It's my pleasure. When are you interviewing Megan?"

"After you," says Gloria. "And then we'll do the two of you together. Everything is out of sequence, but we patch it all together in post-production." Gloria's face looks harsh, unwilling to spare any niceness energy until production noises are made. The board claps and once again she becomes "Gloria."

"Karen." Gloria puts on her serious look, cradles her chin atop her hands, and looks deeply at Karen. "The world is curious—and I know this is a simple question, but I need to ask it—how does it feel to be a modern Rip Van Winkle? Almost twenty years asleep. My my. What's it like inside your head? What's it like to be you right now?"

"You know what I feel? I feel useless in this modern world. I'm unable to do anything but lie around. I feel like I'm the only person on Earth who relaxes anymore. And then I think about all the bad stuff that's about to happen and I feel sorry for the world because it's nearly over."

Cut!

Assistants run over. "Karen, what on Earth was that?"Karen blinks and looks out the window at the sky, competing for attention with the camera lights. "I'm not sure. It just came out." Richard slips around a corner and motions for Wendy to come over. He tells her what happened.

"Karen," Gloria says, "let's try that one again. Maybe we can ask about the, er, bad stuff with another question. Agreed?"

"Sure. It's your show."

Rolling…

"Karen." Gloria again looks deeply at Karen and repeats word-perfectly, "The world is curious—and I know this is a simple question but I need to ask it—how does it feel to be a modern Rip Van Winkle? Twenty years asleep. My my. What's it like inside your head? What's it like to be you right now?"

"I feel useless as tits on a board. I sit around all day doing dick-all while everybody else runs around like crazed cartoon characters."

A semi-defeated silence follows. Gloria asks, "Anything else?"

"Seeing as your asking, yes. The world's going to be over soon."

Cut!

"Karen, I— Excuse me a second." Gloria darts outside. An assistant, Jason, comes in to play good cop. He's a slow walker; his eyes have seen something. He doesn't discount the odd and he sees a possible miracle where others see dreck. "Karen," he says, motioning the film crew to keep rolling, "when you say the world's over, what, exactly, do you mean!"

"What I said. I …" There is a pause and a voice speaks, the voice of Karen who was away all these years. "Three days after Christmas. That's when the world goes dark. There's nothing that can be done and there's no escaping. I saw it happen in 1979. By accident, some doors had been left open and I got a peek. I wasn't snooping. I just saw it at the right time. I thought I could sleep my way out of it—I wasn't sure of the date it was going to happen. I wanted to be asleep forever. It's not the same as death, but it's the only way we have to escape time. That's what makes us different from every other creature in the world—we have time. And we have choices."

Jason is quiet. The camera still rolls. Richard, Pam, and Wendywatch. In the lull, they can hear Gloria's voice saying, "What am I supposed to do when she keeps shutting down and spouting claptrap. Does she not have the word 'retake' in her vocabulary?"

"Gloria, she's been in a coma for twenty years almost. People expect her to be odd."

"I can't believe we lost the tear shot."

Jason says, "Are there any details you can give, Karen. Places? names? Is it a bomb or is it—"

"It's sleep. Nearly everybody falls asleep and then they go. It's painless. Where do you live?"

"New York."

"You'll go. Gloria goes. Everybody there goes."

"And this doesn't make you sad?"

"It hasn't happened yet. I won't know until it's over."

"What about you and your family and friends. Don't you worry for them?"

"There's nothing I can do to help them one way or another. All of this was decided a long, long time ago. And I don't know specifically who lives and who doesn't. So I can't tell you people, really, I can't."

"And you?"

"Me? I get to live. I know that for sure." Karen seems to have no more to say on this subject.

Jason's face is thoughtful. "Thanks for telling me this."

"I might as well." And then Karen wakes up while still asleep. She startles: "Wha—?—I spaced out again there. I dreamed I was telling you the world was going to shut down."

"A dream?"

"No. Not really. I suppose not."