Bad hair day

This was the first time Rock had seen Ashley in nearly three years, and she looked awful. She was nearly bald. Her exposed scalp was covered in soars and scabs. Rock had no idea why she was at his front door and, in fact, would never learn why she had come.
Ashley told him she hadn't had a drink since 2004. Rock knew better. He had drunk with her several times in 2005, and for the last time in 2013, when she was in North Little Rock for her father's funeral.
After they had conversed for a few minutes, Ashley's hair seemed normal. Rock forgot whatever his first impression of it had been.

An examination

These weren't Rock's usual doctor. The first, a man, checked his blood pressure. Rock's systolic reading was in the mid-one twenties, but his diastolic was fifty-eight.
"Bill Joseph is my doctor, and he put me on this really strong blood-pressure medicine," Rock said. "Do you think he might want to put me on something not quite as strong?"
"That's a possibility," the doctor said.
The next doctor, a woman, pulled out a plastic instrument of some sort that was about the shape and size of a ball-point pin. She made it clear that she intended to insert it in Rock's right arm. Rock resisted, but she would not be denied and almost angrily stuck it in just above his elbow. To Rock's surprise, there was no pain involved. Also to his surprise, the doctor withdrew from his arm a clear liquid that looked as if it had ground black pepper floating in it.
"It's obvious that you've eaten some pepper today," the doctor said. "You have, haven't you?"

The Dow Jones

Everyone at the newspaper was sweating out the markets, which struck Rock as odd. He couldn't remember anyone so much as paying attention to them before.
When the Dow Jones closed, Rock looked to see that it was up four points for the day, far from significant, but everyone he could see looked depressed.
"What's the deal?" Rock asked a woman near him named Allison. "The Dow closed ahead. Why is everybody so down?"
"Only two components were up for the day," Allison said.

Home runs

Several people had purchased seats in Rock's back bedroom so they would have a chance to catch home runs hit by professional baseball players. Rock was confused, since the baseball stadium was in front of his house. Obviously, if there were any chance of a ball flying through a window into his house, it would have to come in from the front. Also, it was 7 a.m. and late December. Clearly there were no baseball games underway anywhere nearby.

An almanac

Rock and his workmates were seated around the copy desk in the Miami Herald sports department when their boss asked them an odd question.
"OK, if you guys could go over to the news desk and steal anything you wanted for our department, what would it be?"
Rock answered without hesitation. "The first thing I'd go for would be a copy of the World Almanac," he said. "Every department at every newspaper needs one."
Apparently no one knew how to respond. Even Rock understood that the Internet had turned almanacs virtually obsolete

Hair

An Arab man washed his hair as he walked through this very airport the day before, but another Arab man, presumed a terrorist, poured sulfuric acid on his head from a small glass jar.
Many people mentioned this to Rock as he also walked through the airport while washing his hair, but as far as he was concerned, he had no choice. Rock's hair was filthy and he was about to fly somewhere for a funeral.

The Bear

Because of heavy rain, golfers would have to finish the first round of the Arkansas Open on a temporary plastic green set up in the Burns Park Golf Course clubhouse.
Rock agreed to cover the event for the paper, and as he watched the first few golfers finish, noticed a box full of old, yellowed scorecards near his table. With a glance, Rock could see they had been filled out, obviously years earlier. He picked one up and was delighted to see it was signed by Cary Middlecoff, a golfer of worldwide significance in the 1960s. He looked more closely and saw one signed by Hubert Green, another by Mike Souchak, and then, almost unbelievably, Rock held in his hand a frayed, stained scorecard signed perhaps fifty years earlier by Jack Nicklaus.
It disappointed Rock that none of the golfers in the clubhouse seemed interested by it.

Tech wizards

Jeff Bezos was among the tech wizards gathered in Rock's front bed room on a gloomy, mid-December Saturday morning. There were several others there Rock couldn't identify, but he knew they all had come to seek his technological advice, which he would gladly offer once he drank some coffee and wiped the sleep from his eyes.
Before the men arrived, Rock lay in his cool bed with his cat Jo curled near his ankles. He wondered how he had managed to gather such bounty.

Skydiving

They were literally floating through the clouds. It was raining heavily in downtown Little Rock, and Rock and another sportswriter from the paper were at about three-thousand feet, descending gradually toward the Democrat Building.
For the time being they felt safe, but Rock's cohort had watched the weather report and was worried the clouds would run out. Rock was more confident. "I think we'll be OK," he said. "This feels to me like the sort of rainstorm that will stick around all day."
"I don't know, Rock. I wouldn't count on it."
Suddenly Rock was in doubt. "Shit, man, maybe we shouldn't, but what choice do we have?"
Almost the moment he said it, Rock could see the clouds start to break up to the south. Seconds later they were in blue skies and a free fall.
The other man was about fifty feet below Rock and maybe the same distance further east. He held two parachutes. Rock stretched out horizontally in an attempt to slow himself and perhaps maneuver more closely to his partner, but they were running out of time.
"I'm going to try to throw one of these too you," the other shouted.
"Fine," Rock said. "Give it your best shot."
The man threw the chute, and it came quickly at Rock, who reached in the split second he had to catch it; he missed and knew in that instant he was doomed. Rock considered shouting to the other man the names of people to tell that he loved but was already out of range. As the buildings closed in, he knew he had only seconds to live, but Rock was nevertheless pleased to feel a certain peace. He wished everyone could know that he did not die terrified or panicked.

Work

It was the first time Rock had been in the Arkansas Democrat building since late spring, 2009, and he couldn't believe how much it had changed.
The stairwell looked as modern as one in a new building, though the Democrat Building was nearly a hundred years old. Immediately after Rock walked through the doorway to the newsroom, he was stunned to see that it looked completely different from before.
He had never seen so many people on the floor. It was apparent to Rock there was a holiday party underway as he walked through it toward the sports department. About halfway there, he saw two reporters scuffling. He at first thought they were pretending but soon realized they were engaged in a genuine fight. One had his arm around the other's head, which he continually slugged. Blood was everywhere.
Despite their clash, no one paid them any attention. It looked as though the one being slugged was close to dead and no one seemed to care. Rock walked past without a second thought.

A new look

Both of Rock's eyes were black, but Dr. Bill Josephson told him not to worry, that they had become nearly fashionable. "No, I'm not kidding," he said. "Chicks like black eyes. They make you look tough."
Rock was on his back on the cold tile of his tiny bathroom and was having trouble getting up. He knocked over two metal vases filled with blue and yellow plastic flowers, pea gravel and wood chips, and knew immediately the cleanup would be a pain in the ass. Josephson gave him a hand. "Here, man, take a look at yourself," he said. "Put on your glasses. They'll add to it."
Rock looked in the mirror and saw what his doctor was talking about. This look was pretty cool, like that of a fighter pilot or lifeguard.

The chair

Several writers from the paper, including Rock, were at the Pine Bluff Convention Center to cover a basketball tournament. Their work station was among a long row of tables in a hallway that ran through the conjoining hotel. There was commotion all around as Rock and the other reporters attempted to write. Hotel employees and guests were constantly walking past, apparently oblivious to them.
Rock's dissatisfaction increased when he noticed that the seat of his chair was beginning to disintegrate. Within a minute, the entire chair was in shambles. It looked as if someone had smashed it to bits with sledge hammer or thrown it into heavy traffic. Rock feared the hotel would charge him for it.

Forever

It seemed intolerable but would clearly endure forever, and there was consequently no hope for Rock unless he could learn to live for eternity in this other world. He was there with nothing except an odd, wet house and his cat Jo, who Rock suspected was as confused as he.
This was so very strange, and they would have to wait until the end of time to get back to the home they were familiar with.