transfer to one of my portraits, and, transferring, I am more real than—what shall I call it?—the photographic reproduction of my real surroundings. Then, sometimes, the photographic reproduction, the iconic illusion, that is my environment when I am in one of the portraits of me, fades just enough so that I can look "out" into the reality where my portrait hangs, and see, and even hear the watchers, as ghosts in my solid "reality."

Quite often I can only hear them, and then they are voices out of nowhere, sometimes addressing me directly, just as often talking to one another and ignoring my presence. But when I can see them too, they appear as ghostly but sharply clear visions that seem to be present in my solid-looking environment. There, but somewhat transparent.

I have often seen and talked to Lana in this manner, in her far-off world, where I am part of her private collection. In fact, I can almost always tell when I shift to my portrait in her gallery, because I am suddenly exhilarated and remain so until I shift back, or to some other portrait. That is so even when she is not there but out on one of her many photographic expeditions.

When she is there, and is watching me, and my thoughts are quiet and my mind receptive, she becomes visible. A ghost in my study, or the lab where I work, or—if I am asleep—in my dreams. Like an angel, or a goddess. And we talk.

Back in the physical reality, of course, no one else can hear her voice. My real body is going through its routine work almost automatically but my mind, my consciousness, is focused into my portrait in Lana's gallery, and we are talking. And of course in the real world I am talking too, but my associates can't see who I'm talking to, and it would be useless to try to explain to them.

So I'm getting quite a reputation as a nut! Can you imagine that?

But why should I mind? My reality has a much broader and more complex scope than the limited reality of my associates. I might be fired, or even sent to a state hospital, except for the fact that Lana foresees such problems and teaches me enough things in my field that are unknown to Earth, so that my employers consider me too valuable to lose.

If this story were fiction the ending would have to be that I am in love with Lana and she with me, and there would be a nice conclusive ending where she comes back to Earth to marry me and carry me back to her world, where we would live happily ever after. But the truth of the matter is that I'm not in love with Lana, nor she with me. Sometimes I think I am her favorite portrait, but nothing more.

But really, everything is so interesting. Lana's gallery where I hang, the museum where there are new faces each time I look out, and new voices when I can't see out, Aunt Matilda's sewing room where she is at the moment, and all Sumac as she goes about her normal pattern of living.

It is a rich, full life that I live, shifting here and there in consciousness while my physical body goes about its necessary tasks, as often unguided as not. (What a reputation I'm getting for absent-mindedness, too!)

And out of it all has come a perspective that, when I feel it strongly, makes me feel almost like a god. In that perspective all my portraits (and there are many now, on many worlds and in many places on this world!) blend into one. That one is the stage of my life. But not a stage, really. A show window. Yes, that is it. A show window, where the watchers pass.

I live in a show window that opens out in many worlds and many places that are hidden from me by a veil that sometimes grows thin, so I can see through it. And from the other side of that veil, even when I cannot see through it, come the voices of the watchers, as they pass by, or pause to look at me.

And I am not the only one! There are others. More and more of them, as Lana comes back on her photographic expeditions for the museum.

None that I have met understand what it is about as