Marty is a thirty-three-year-old author who works from home. He writes mystery/thriller style books and is generally easy going, with a good sense of humor. He and his wife Paige have two daughters and he enjoys joking around with them. He likes to drive fast, although he's never had an accident or been given a ticket. At the age of thirty-three, he has his first fugue state. It lasts seven minutes and he is later frightened by the fact that he can remember none of it. In fact, he would have been totally unaware of it had it not occurred when he was in the process of dictating a letter to his editor on a cassette recorder, recording the strange lapse that had him repeating two words with increasing desperation for the full seven minutes.