#prose styling

On his way to Diego's, Jeffrey discovers a woman harmed by information excess. All the symptoms are present: bleeding from the nose and ears, vomiting, deliriously disconnected speech, apparent disorientation, and the desire to touch everything. She has a rubber mat rolled up under her arm and is walking around one of the soft, new park benches recently installed by the city, palpating it hungrily. A small crowd has collected around her, listening to her complicated monologue: Birds of Prey Cards, sunspot soufflé, Antarctic unemployment. Jeffrey hesitates. I've never seen one so far gone, he thinks. But, judging her young enough to warrant hope, he gently takes the rubber mat from the woman, unrolls it upon the pavement, and helps her to assume the memory-elimination posture. After a minute, the bleeding stops. "I was on my way to dance class," she says to him, still running her ravening fingers over his leather coat sleeve, "when suddenly I was dazzled. I couldn't tell where one thing left off and the next began." She is rather pretty. Jeffrey explains that he believes information sickness, like malaria, recurs unpredictably. "Please let me through," comes a voice. "I'm this lady's husband." The woman and her husband thank Jeffrey profusely and he leaves.