Next to me, on my left (three rows from the wall) stood a guy in army fatigues. Next to him on the floor stood his green backpack (like a small duffel bag). He had no chair because he shook all the time, much like elderly people do. He looked normal enough otherwise. He had a crew cut with graying blondish hair -- actually, it was almost white. He wore glasses, too.

It was his job to take roll, and since he had no desk, he had to lean over to mine and write on the roll sheet. As he smiled and asked if he could borrow my pen, I didn't sense anything wrong at all. Then, when he reached down to write, I noticed squid-like suction cups all along the underside of his arms and hands. These were white and his skin faded darker outward to the top of his arms and hands.

I was horrified and sat in sheer anxiety of him now. I was ashamed too, because I thought it was just a deformity, yet he was like a creature from a scientific experiment gone wrong. In this horror, I noticed then that he was signing MY initials to the roll sheet instead of his own! This frightened me even further. On top of that, I looked down at his bag to see it moving. Out squirmed a ball of fur that was a key chain -- it was alive, too! All I saw after that was his look of dejection as he put his key chain back into his bag.