The gray cloud floated just above the floor, like an ice skate without a skater, a rink, or a blade. June watched it glide down the fiction aisle of the library, her eyes drawn to the unmottled color, the impossible single gradientless shade.
She stumbled in pursuit.
The thing slowed, allowing her to get closer, allowing her to fully perceive the hovering lumpy thickness that left one wondering just what would it feel like to touch. The visual presentation gave contradictory clues. Would it be soft? Sharp? Wet? Fragile? She reached out and a darker gray spot appeared somewhere in the cloud?
“Are you lonely,” a voice pried into her skull.
June startled backwards and clamped her ears shut as if they were on fire.
“You feel alone,” the gray spot pulsed in time with the words that dropped into her mind. “There’s no running from loneliness, is there?”
June ran.
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