He kept his greying hair very short, and wore a loose, informal business suit with no necktie. Lanky and ebony-skinned, he had dark freckles on his age-wrinkled cheeks. Tobias is another hallucination-or “aspect,” as I sometimes call them. “Stephen?” a voice came from the doorway. “I’d explain, but you don’t have clearance.” “That’s a story we told the public, Skinny.” J.C. He slapped a new clip into the gun, then eyed the picture of bin Laden. Big without being bulky, square-faced but not distinctive, he had the eyes of a killer. Most of them accept it, to one extent or another. doesn’t believe that he’s a hallucination, which is unusual. “It’s an imaginary gun anyway,” I said, handing it back to him. reached out, pointing the tip of the gun up in the air, then moving my finger off the trigger. I sighed, taking the remote from the end table, then turning down the music. “Terrorists don’t usually find me in a shooting range. “We had a shooting range installed in the mansion for a purpose, J.C. “Care to fire off a mag or two? You could use the practice.” “Eh, Skinny,” he said, holding up the handgun.

looks half like a scowl, but I’d long ago learned to stop being intimidated by him. He glanced toward me, then grinned, taking off his earmuffs. “J.C.!” I shouted as he stopped to reload.

I wasn’t inclined to give them the opportunity. How would my mind interpret that? Undoubtedly, there were a dozen psychologists who’d want to write a paper on it. I didn’t know what would happen if one of my hallucinations shot me. He might accidentally shoot me if I surprised him. He emptied a clip into bin Laden’s face, punching an assortment of holes through the wall in the process. “I was trying to have a conversation!” I yelled. wore his own earmuffs, his handgun raised in two hands, sighting at a picture of Osama bin Laden on the wall. Grumbling to myself, I grabbed the earmuffs hanging outside his door-I’d learned to keep them there-and pushed my way in. The gunshots coming from J.C.’s room popped like firecrackers. My hallucinations, however, are all quite mad. My name is Stephen Leeds, and I am perfectly sane.

Many lives of stephen leeds