8.

     Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Where am I?   
     Rick was feeling dizzy and light. He squeezed his eyes as they tried to adjust to the brightness around him. Everything was white and green and spotlessly clean. He wanted to get up. He tried to place his elbows for support, but he found that not to be necessary.
     Strange. That was easy.
     The world was moving a little in waves around him, but he was very sure of what he was doing. He tried getting up on his feet, but found that he couldn't keep them down. His legs were floating up, and his body was following them through the air. He didn't mind. They were going in the right direction.
     He flew through the door, and saw a last glimpse of himself sleeping calmly on the bed. A thin, infinitely elastic string of ethereal smoke seemed to come out of his body right up to his present form.
     It was lively outside. Nurses were hurrying about in the corridors, and people were reading magazines and working on their laptops in a quiet hall.
     He flew past the people, the garden, and over the road, and towards an alley on the rear side of a cheap bar, where two homeless black people were sitting by a bonfire.
     "You hear what happen near jail crossing?"
     "I heard Jimmy talkin' about some skinhead passing out."
     "Man, that white shit got a heart-attack, or something."
     "Serve him right, too. Racist son of a bitch."
     "Willie took him to the hospital on Jim's bike."
     "That nigga mad? He shoulda left the shit to choke on  his puke, man. He don't understand these fucking clans-people. They don't like nothin' black."

     "Mr. Foster?"
     There was a slight tension in the string, and he felt a little pull.
     "Rick?"
     He flew backwards out the alley, over the road, through the garden, the hall, the corridors, and that door, and woke up in his bed.
     "Mr. Foster? You feeling better?"
     "Rick!" sobbed Lindsey with joy, and fell upon him, crying.