The Key to Midnight

manicured nails bit into his skin.
        'Should I get you to a doctor?'
        'No. It's over. I'll be all right. I just… I need to sit here for a while.'
        She still appeared to be ill, but a trace of color slowly began to return to her cheeks.
        'What happened, Joanna?'
        Her lower lip quivered like a suspended bead of water about to surrender to the insistent pull of gravity. Bright tears glistened in the corners of her eyes.
        'Hey. Hey now,' he said softly.
        'Alex, I'm so sorry.'
        'About what?'
        'I made such a fool of myself.'
        'Nonsense.'
        'Embarrassed you,' she said.
        'Not a chance.'
        Her eyes brimmed with tears.
        'It's okay,' he told her.
        'I was just… scared.'
        'Of what?'
        'The Korean.'
        'What Korean?'
        'The man with one hand.'
        'Was he Korean? Do you know him?'
        'Never saw him before.'
        "Then what? Did he say something?'
        She shook her head. 'No. He… he reminded me of something awful… and I panicked.' Her hand tightened on his.
        'Reminded you of what?'
        She was silent, biting her lower lip.
        He said, 'It might help to talk about it.'
        For a long moment she gazed up into the lowering sky, as if reading enigmatic messages into the patterns of the swift-moving clouds. Finally she told him about the nightmare.
        'You have it every night?' he asked.
        'For as far back as I can remember.'
        'When you were a child?'
        'I guess… no… not then.'
        'Exactly how far back?'
        'Seven or eight years. Maybe ten.'
        'Maybe twelve?'
        Through her shimmering tears she regarded him curiously. 'What do you mean?'
        Rather than answer, he said, 'The odd thing about it is the frequency. Every night. That must be unbearable. It must drain you. The dream itself isn't particularly strange. I've had worse. But the endless repetition-'
        'Everyone's had worse,' Joanna said. 'When I try to describe the nightmare, it doesn't sound all that terrifying or threatening. But at night… I feel as if I'm dying. There aren't words for what I go through, what it does to me.'
        Alex felt her stiffen as though steeling herself against the recollected impact of the nightly ordeal. She bit her lip and for a while said nothing, merely stared at the funereal gray-black clouds that moved in an endless cortege from east to west across the city.
        When at last she looked at him again, her eyes were haunted. 'Years ago, I'd wake up from the dream and be so damned scared I'd throw up. Physically ill with fear, hysterical. These days, it's not so acute… though more often than not, I can't get back to sleep. Not right away. The mechanical hand, the needle… it makes me feel so… slimy… sick in my soul.'
        Alex held her hand in both of his hands, cupping her frigid fingers in his warmth. 'Have you ever talked to anyone about this dream?'
        'Just Mariko… and now you.'
        'I was thinking of a doctor.'
        'Psychiatrist?'
        'It might help.'
        'He'd try to free me of the dream by discovering the cause of it,' she said tensely.
        'What's wrong with that?'
        She huddled on the bench, silent, the image of despair.
        'Joanna?'
        'I don't want to know the cause.'
        'If it'll help cure-'
        'I don't want to know,' she said firmly.
        'All right. But why not?'
        She didn't answer.
        'Joanna?'
        'Knowing would destroy me.'
        Frowning, he said, 'Destroy? How?'
        'I can't explain… but I feel it.'
        'It's not knowing that's tearing you apart.'
        She was silent again. She withdrew her hand from his, rummaged in her purse for a handkerchief, and blew her nose.
        After a while he said, 'Okay, forget the psychiatrist. What do you suppose is the cause of the nightmare?'
        She shrugged.
        'You must have given it a lot of thought over the years.'
        'Thousands of hours,' Joanna said bleakly.
        'And? Not even one idea?'
        'Alex, I'm tired. And still embarrassed. Can we just… not talk about it any more?'
        'All right.'
        She cocked her head. 'You'll really drop it that easily?'
        'What right do I have to pry?'
        She smiled thinly. It was her first smile since they had sat down, and it looked