Last name, first name, middle initial.

Last name, first name, middle initial. Home phone. Work phone. Permanent mailing address. Person to call in case of emergency. In the first blank I wrote George. In the other blanks I wrote N/A.

George, the receptionist said. We also need your last name.

I don’t have a last name, I said. At least none that I can remember. I turned the form around on the counter so it faced me again. Next to my name I wrote N/A. There you go, I said. Will there be anything else?

The receptionist rolled her eyes. Sit down, she said. We’ll call you in a few minutes.

There were no empty chairs, so I sat on the floor next to a potted plant. I propped myself up against the wall. There were scuff marks all over it, and here and there some small writing. I found one message that said, With any luck, the world will end. That cheered me up.

For a long time, no one said George. They said Daniel, and Roberta, and Martha, and Arturo, and Benjamin, but not George. They said Gary, and a door by the receptionist opened, and a big guy got up out of one of the gum-reinforced plastic chairs and walked slowly to the door and disappeared. Ouch, he said, when he was about halfway there. Poor old Gary. He was limping pretty bad.