Alice drank too much and passed out on a bush. The girls who found her, as girls tend to do, flipped out: called the police, the ambulance, said there was a girl here within an inch of dying. They loved the drama of screaming into their cell phones: “I don’t know if she’s breathing! I just don’t know!”

Though she was up, and declaring herself to be “brilliant” the ambulance took her back to the hospital, kicking and screaming. “God damn it,” she yelled as the ambulance siren whirled above them, “this is the stupidest thing… Couldn’t you be helping someone with a stab wound? A gunshot straight to the gut? I just passed out. It’s what I do. You would too… it was such a nice, comfortable bush.”

At the hospital, she shared a room with a lady whose greasy hair was matted to her face, which was broken out in small reddish dots. “Shingles,” said the woman, with malice, breaking the silence between them. “My boyfriend kissed me, the bastard, and he gave me shingles!””What are you here for?” asked the woman. Her pupils were dilated obscenely.

“I drank a little too much,” said Alice. “That’s stupid,” said the woman, and her teeth were pale yellow, and she licked at them with a quick and sickly looking white tongue. She had spittle on the corners of her mouth. “Maybe you need to find God. Are you a heathen?”

Alice grimaced and stared at the ceiling. “Do you know why I’m here?” asked the woman. Alice shook her head. “I’m here cause my asshole boyfriend inserted his sperm into my medicine. And then I injected his sperm into my leg.”

Alice had no words. She faced the wall and closed her eyes. “Don’t let any bastards into your life. They just ruin it,” said the crazed woman. “Do you know what it feels like to have sperm in your leg? I’m sure you’ve had it other places, you heathen slut.”

Jane turned to face the woman who was licking at her mouth. “Excuse me?” she asked. She tried to sound disdainful; she just sounded terrified.