The next morning my body naturally stirs me awake as it informs me of my need to drink some water. Much like most mornings I’m covered in sweat and my throat drier than Mr. Camus’ Crispy Crunchy Salad Mix. Unlike the salad however, my throat won’t get better with creamy condiments. I need water and I need it now. I turn and look over at the stranger in my bed. He is out like a light and fully-clothed at that. He’s probably going to be sober once he wakes up, but the responsible thing to do is still call the clinic just in case. My eyes wander from his face down his shirt, pants and eventually settle on his shoes. Wait, he was wearing his shoes to bed?!

With a quick stretch I sit up straight and gingerly make my way over Nuggets in an effort to not wake him from his sleep. I yawn silently and go to stand directly under the ceiling fan in a futile attempt to cool down my body. I know it doesn’t do much in the way of directly cooling me down, but I’d do anything to get out of this stuffy heat that is plaguing my room. What was I doing? Right, water. Water and then calling the clinic. My phone is placed on a small table in the corner of my room just next to the kitchenette. Its square-shaped box has a nice obsidian black hue to it, matching its big red ears and upturned, grinning mouth, accentuated by the kind of red lipstick you see actresses wear in movies and plays when they are dressed all fancy.

I slowly point my index finger at the phone, taking aim with all the speed of a groggy working adult who didn’t get enough sleep last night. Black sludge begins to emerge and spill out of my hand, dangling a couple of inches from my curled fingers before climbing back up and dragging its way across my skin, all gathering in the same little spot at the tip of my finger. Its texture is soft, like a sort of squishy, sentient room temperature jelly that is actually pretty pleasant. The only thing I could do without is the strong smell of charcoal that it exudes, but you can’t win them all. The sludge wobbles and dances on my finger, shaping itself into a tiny, hardened black sphere no bigger than a human eyeball. With a gentle nudge of my finger I push the ball forward and watch it lightly bounce across the floor towards the telephone.

I stretch my arms and walk over to the sink to get a glass of water, counting each tap of the ball as it bounces. One, two, three, four…

I take a greedy sip of water to meet my body’s needs and continue counting, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen!

On the thirteenth bounce I turn and look as the ball bounces up over the phone. With a flick of my wrist the ball curves, halting its momentum through the air as it makes an unnatural turn and flies directly into the hole in the ear of the telephone. With the last gulp of water my thirst is quenched and I put my glass away.

‘‘Hey there pal, how would you like to make the most of your day?’’

My phone grins as it calls to me with a distinctly west Kandonian accent. All phones have this accent, but mine is also sassy.

‘‘I would very much like to. Could you call up Ganta’s Clinic for me?’’

‘‘Mhm and would you like to make that a normal call, or a priority call?’’

A priority call? Well I suppose it would be nice to move ahead in line.

‘‘Make that a priority call.’’

The telephone opened its mouth and rolled its long pink tongue out, extending it expectantly. I don’t make priority calls all too often because usually my calls aren’t very urgent, but thankfully it’s a relatively simple process. I place a gold coin on the tongue and the phone takes it in and chews on it, before swallowing my change. Its teeth then proceed to flash red one by one, accompanied by artificial beeping noises with each flash as it dials up the clinic.

‘‘I’ve got a good one for you today, listen closely pal. What is a devil’s favorite candy?’’

‘‘Favorite candy? I feel like I have heard this one before.’’ I put an index finger up to my temple and close my eyes as I try to visualize it. What was it again? I hear a soft rustling of bedsheets and turn to see the stranger in my bed finally waking up.

‘‘Oh Nuggets, you’re finally awake.’’

‘‘Mm.’’

‘‘I’m just making a call so we can get you sorted, why don’t you take a shower before breakfast?’’ I point to the door leading to the bathroom and he blindly obeys, a half awake zombie stumbling into the bathroom. ‘‘Oh yeah and don’t try to drink the peach shampoo, it’s not for consumption.’’

‘‘You got it all wrong pal, peach shampoo is not it!’’

‘‘No wait! That wasn’t my answer!’’

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‘‘You are currently number 31 in line.’’

I sigh and go on with my day, tidying up the apartment in all the little ways, like putting away scattered laundry and taking care of dirty dishes that had been sitting for too long.

‘‘Emma, the shower…’’ I hear Nuggets’ voice, the most defeated I have ever heard it, coming from the bathroom. As far as I am aware I have a pretty standard shower. Unless he is somehow more wealthy than he lets on. ‘‘Oh you just insert the sludge in the side.’’ I hear some scrambling and quiet shuffling from behind the door, ‘‘Okay um, where is the sludge? Do you keep it somewhere?’’

‘‘Are you still on drugs?’’

‘‘I’m not.’’

‘‘Nuggets, I’m coming in okay?’’

‘‘Okay.’’

I gingerly push the door open, giving him some time to cover himself before I stick my head in. Much to my surprise however, he is still fully clothed. Not only that, but he is on his knees and inspecting the side of the toilet, not the shower. ‘‘Nuggets? It’s uh, over here.’’ I point to the shower curtains and pull them aside, causing a small ‘‘Oh.’’ in response from the bewildered guy.

‘‘Have you ever showered before?’’

‘‘I can’t remember.’’

‘‘Okay look, I’ll lend you some sludge, here hold your hand out.’’

Much like with the phone I make a small amount of sludge rise from my fingertip and shape it into a little, black sticky dough ball. ‘‘Put this in the socket there.’’ Nuggets inspects it for a second before reacting, ‘‘So I just-?’’ He points to the crimson red socket on the wall to confirm and I nod, ‘‘Just push it in gently. It’s magic powered like everything else here. Now turn that handle.’’ Thankfully my shower is one of the less complicated ones. One handle controls the force of the water, while the other controls the heat. ‘‘And you’re set from here, with the amount of sludge I gave you, you have about 15 minutes to get clean.’’

‘‘Okay.’’

‘‘I’ll be right out here if you need anything.’’

‘‘Okay.’’

‘‘Oh and take off your clothes before you go in?’’

‘‘This is my only pair.’’

‘‘I’ll lend you some, I-’’

I hear distorted static coming from my phone as the dull idle music morphs into a familiar, deep voice. ‘‘That’s my phone call! I have to go for now Nuggets.’’ I walk over to my phone and detach one of the big floppy ears and press the earhole up to my mouth.

‘‘This is Ganta’s Clinic, you’re speaking with the man himself.’’ Gone is the west Kandon accent, replaced by the voice of the receiving caller.

‘‘Hey Ganta it’s me Emma. I’m calling about a pretty unusual situation.’’

Ganta is a kind and patient man. He has that familiar and warm, almost guardian-like quality a good doctor should have. He has never directly said it to me, but he has this aura about him that tells you everything is going to be okay. It makes me feel lucky to be his customer. I make sure to explain the entire situation in detail. How I found Nuggets, how he was staring into the abyss, how he cannot recall a thing about his past, or about magic. As soon as I got to the marks over his eyes, Ganta seemed to finish my sentence for me.

‘‘Long marks that look like horns? Like he was branded?’’

‘‘Yeah I- that’s exactly it Doc. Is it some kind of serious illness?’’

‘‘Emma, I'd like for you and your friend to come to my clinic right away.’’

‘‘Sounds serious, is it bad?’’

‘‘Don’t worry, your friend is not sick, but it is very likely that he is a Nomad.’’

‘‘A Nomad?’’

‘‘You should know what the implications of that means.’’

‘‘Are you really sure, I mean-’’

‘‘Emma. Make sure to let him know what we talked about before your visit. Can you be here in one hour?’’

‘‘I um, yeah. Yeah that’s doable.’’

‘‘I’ll be looking forward to seeing you both then.’’

After a moment of silence the call ends and I watch my phone power down as it burns through the small supply of magic sludge I fed it. I sit back on my bed and look out the window, getting lost in the swirling, animated skyline of air and sludge as I think about Ganta’s words. How can I tell Nuggets what a nomad is? He probably doesn’t even know what it means. I’m not even sure I know what it means. There are a lot of philosophical implications attached to that label and I’m not sure I can fully comprehend it at this moment. I finally hear the water turn off in the shower and I go to knock on the door. ‘‘Nuggets? How are you? I called the clinic.’’

‘‘I feel sick.’’

‘‘Don’t tell me you…’’ I swiftly open the door to find the lanky stranger face down on the ground with an empty bottle of shampoo next to him. ‘‘You drank it? You really drank it all? Really, all of it Nuggets?’’

‘‘Bleh.’’ He turned his head to the side with a weak groan and started regurgitating soap bubbles and water on my bathroom floor. ‘‘Tasty but bad.’’

‘‘I know! That’s why I told you not to drink any!’’

After Nuggets dried himself off with a towel I tossed him the biggest size of clothing I had, which still turned out to be way too small for his lanky body. ‘‘It’s tight.’’ He noted, scratching at the collar of the neon green t-shirt I had lent him. ‘‘Yeah this is only a temporary solution since you have no other clothes. We’ll work on something when we get back from the clinic.’’