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only one person at a time, or none at all.”
    I narrowed my eyes and glared at him, then asked, “How do you know all this about me?”
    Gus replied, “I know it because I’ve been through it. Like you, I’m a mind reader, although now that I have met you I doubt that my mild talents really compare to yours. But I learned how to handle it the hard way, so maybe I can help you.”
    I stared him down hard and asked, “Why would you help me? How do I know I can trust you?”
    His eyes widened, “Such questions from one as young as you! You never got to be a child, did you? Anyhow, you can trust me because unlike you I am trapped in this coma and cannot escape. I can experience the minds of the other patients and staff here, but I cannot talk to them as we talk now.” Gus took a breath, then continued. “I’m lonely, Adam. Simple as that. Trust that.”
    So that was how I met my best friend and mentor. Over the next nine years he never stopped teaching me. I owed everything to him.
    My thoughts were a million miles away as I checked in with the security guard and headed for the elevator. As I stepped off the elevator at the third floor, I waved a greeting to Estelle and Maria, the nurses at the reception desk. Because they both started working here after I was a patient, they didn’t fear me like the old timers did. There is an old janitor named Pavel who gives me the evil eye when I’m not looking. Not these ladies. They were accustomed to my regular visits, although my visits were somewhat less regular lately, and didn’t make me sign in anymore.
    This visit was overdue. Any time I really needed advice, Gus has always been there, and there is no excuse for me not to be there for him. Then I realized, with a pang of guilt, that the only reason that I was here was because I wanted his advice. I needed something from him yet again. I pledged silently to visit him more often, once this was all over.
    Gus was the only remaining occupant of room 319, and it still had the same astringent smell of strong disinfectant that it had when I shared it with him. It looked like a marriage between a cheap motel room and a hospital. The peeling yellow wallpaper was patterned with interlocking rings suggestive of gold chainmail. The olive green fabric of the room’s one chair was misshapen by the worn out springs of the seat cushion, and when I sank down into it the old metal groaned in protest. Over the bed hung a cheap oil painting. It depicted a man resting in a hammock tied between two curved palm trees. While most of the scene was bathed in sunlight, the hammock itself was shaded by one of the trees, the dark shadow making it impossible to distinguish between the man and the hammock. It just looked like a bizarre horizontal cocoon. A bronze panel glued to the frame was engraved with the title, “Tranquility”.
    His body was perfectly still in the hospital bed, but I knew that his mind was active and free. I closed my eyes and went to him, finding myself barefoot on a beach with fine white sand next to warm, turquoise waters. Gus reclined on a wicker lounge chair with a tropical drink in one hand and a book in the other.
    I chuckled, “How you can read a book in a dream realm is amazing to me. Are you making up the story as you go along?”
    Gus shut the book and replied, “Adam, nothing I do should surprise you at this point. I read this book when I was a boy, and here I can read it almost perfectly from my not inconsiderable memory. You, on the other hand, have a mind unparalleled on this earth, yet have never finished a book in all the time I have known you. What a waste.”
    I retorted lightly as I sat in the sand next to him, “I have read lots of books through the memory of others. Think of it as psionic Cliff’s Notes.”
    Gus frowned. “Psionic. Hmm. Interesting word choice. I never described our abilities like that to you. Researching, are we?”
    “Not research, Gus. I met someone else like us. A woman. Her name