by Jeff Friedman

Schmidt disappeared from the cubicle where he sat at work, even though his fellow workers could still sniff his microwaved ragu and his battered dictionary remained on the desk. His umbrella with ripped blue nylon torn from the metal spokes still leaned against the gray cloth wall. When one of them opened the dictionary, it almost broke in half in his hands, several pages floating to the floor. Schmidt disappeared from the crowd of faces bobbing up and down like buoys on choppy waters. He disappeared from all the shop windows that he stared into on his way home; the shadows might have swallowed him. He disappeared from the grass, mud and leaves of the shortcuts he often took. There were no footprints following him or leading to where he was. He disappeared from the chilly air of his apartment. His name fell off the lips of the woman with whom he lived, but Schmidt didn’t answer, didn’t see himself in the mirrors of her blue eyes. But the foam of the mattress hadn’t given up its memory or impression of him. And from the streaked window where he stared out at the chipmunks plunging into their caves, and the fat squirrel hopped through the ground cover, the hummingbird, hovering above the bee balm, fanning its wings, seemed to be looking through him.