Black Below Black

Chapter 2: Plus ça change...

---

"A curious and yet unexplained phenomenon in particle physics is the fact that the members of the four families of leptons - electron, muon, tau and omicron-prime together with their associated neutrinos and anti-particles - are identical in all observable ways apart from their differing rest masses. Why nature should repeat itself in such an apparently redundant manner is still a great mystery to physicists."

Modern Physics for the Intelligent Non-Specialist
4th Edition - 2016
Progress Publishers, Moscow

---

Oo-wok! Wok! Wok! Wok!

...wha...what the hell. Those aren't roosters...

And I bolted upright in bed and opened my eyes not to my farmhouse bedroom at Erehwon Farms, but to that tiny darkened dorm room at Baxter Hall. I looked at my watch - 6:03 am - and then peeked through the slats of the venetian blinds on my window looking for the source of that racket. What I saw, silhouetted against the faint washed-out traces of early morning city lighting, was a flock of crows perched on the bare tree right outside that window. They were greeting each other and the nearby world good morning in their own inimitably raucous manner. The one nearest to me noticed me peeping through the window, gave me a once over with beady eyes, fluffed its jet black feathers, settled back down and made an penetrating observation about my person.

Wok! Oo-waaaak!

I stood up and stretched, rolling my eyes at the thought of my new corvidian alarm clocks, then got to item number one on my wakeup checklist - switching on the small coffee brewer I'd picked up at the Campus Consumables shop the night before. While waiting for the caffeinated goodness to flow into the carafe, I multi tasked items 2 and 3 - started in on some deep bends while going over in my mind what I had to do over the weekend.

Four - Get acclimated, really. Josh had told me - Five - that most of the faculty and students were out of town for the semester break - Six - so there was little action available as far as getting - Seven - a start on my social standing. - Eight - Do some research into the next sem's - Nine - course offerings, make my selections and - Ten - start hitting the books - Eleven - get a little ahead of the game.

Twenty bends behind me, I got down to some fingertip push-ups. I smiled to myself, another thing Mineral Village had done for me. Before I'd earned my farm muscles, I couldn't have done one of those suckers. The workout felt good. The sweat felt good. But as Taka (as I already called him in my mind) started turning and moaning in his sleep in response to my grunting, I saw the limitations of shared dorm room calisthenics. Guy had said he habitually studied late then rose late and I didn't seeing any point in alienating him by waking him up with the chickens - check, crows - with my morning activities.

Well, the coffee was ready so I knocked off the exercises, got me a cup and got busy looking through the university web - there was a nice flat screen monitor built in to the wall behind my desk that came to life along with my new computer.

Course offerings. Physics. PY413 - Computational Methods for Partial Differential Equations. Check. No choice there, Dr. J had as good as ordered me to take that one. I noted the recommended reading. Another sip of coffee. Aeronautical/Astronautical Engineering. AE633 - Structural Dynamics. Mmm...prereq was PDEs. Next year. AE592 - Rocket Propulsion. I smirked. I could probably teach that one. Might have to - nobody had said anything about me being a TA but I could imagine having to pay for my grant that way. Another sip of coffee. AE549 - Aircraft Engines and Gas Dynamics. Heh. Back to my first love? Before I'd gotten Mars fever, I'd dreamed of becoming a crackerjack aircraft designer. Maybe.

I spent a few more inconclusive minutes poring over the course offerings and getting into the second cup before giving it up. I figured I'd spend some time in the library later in the day getting a taste of the possibles I'd noted. What I then started thinking about was fitness. I was already resigned to the fact that I was going to lose a good part of my build seeing as I wouldn't be putting in 8-10 hours of farm work a day. A damn shame, but no helping it. But I wasn't going to let myself slide back into being a flabby grubworm. Figured an hour workout a day would keep me toned enough. But there was no way in hell I could do it in that room. Fortunately, I noted, the gym opened at 7. Another sip of coffee.

---

I wasn't the only early rising fitness buff on campus. Even with the inter-semester break, the indoor court was ringing with the rebounds and yells of a few gals getting in some quality morning hoop time. Basketball wasn't my thing though. I knew my destination.

Down the stairs to the basement training room it was. I gave a good look over the black walled and ceilinged room filled with some not quite familiar machines. A couple of fellows were already pounding out their morning run on the treadmills. I was greatly pleased that no loud pounding music accompanied them. Looked like the early morning was just the right time for a peaceful workout. I ducked into the locker room for a fast change, and came out to be greeted by the trainer.

It would have been too much had he resembled someone from the village. A Zack - or God help me, a Gotz clone might have sent me running screaming from that place. Fortunately, as fit looking as the guy was, he was something completely different. About my age, squared face, shaved head, usual tank top and shorts - typical gym rat. He introduced himself as Alex and I explained what I was looking for.

"...so, I don't want to go totally to pot just because I've gotta be a greasy grind. Hope I can get in an hour a day here."

He gave me the professionally amiable grin. "You chose the best time. As you can see, not much competition for the machines this early." He chortled a bit at my white tank-top and orange with blue stripe swim trunks. "That's your outfit? School spirit, huh?"

Good natured ribbing has never bothered me. Either I just give back as good as I get, or as I did then, play the straight man. "Heh. Just got here yesterday and haven't had time to shop for clothes."

He studied me with practiced eyes. "You're in pretty good shape. How much you been working out?"

"Call it 10 hours a day average." I went on as he looked surprised. "Manual labor. Did a lot of it this year."

There was a mischievous twinkle in his eyes. "It sure fared you well. Bod like that is really gonna impress people here. Rub some of 'em the right way, ya know what I mean."

I could guess what he meant. And I figured that right then and there was an appropriate occasion to get my orientation out and on the record. I laughed, "It impresses the hell out of my girlfriend. She's fashion model thin and I can lift her with one hand. That really gets her hot to trot." I winked. "Then she rubs me the right way."

There was just a instant of disappointment in his face before he went back to his casual good humor. "Girlfriend eh? Well, we wouldn't want to disappoint the little lady, would we? So what ya wanting to start out on."

"Weights and treadmill would be groovy."

"OK. Right this way, pal." We walked over to a bench. "I'll just show you how this thing works and stand by to see you got it OK. It's pretty easy."

He gave me the once over of the controls, I professed understanding and stretched out on the bench. "Lemme start with fifty keys." He nodded and I punched it into the control pad, grasped the press arm and gave it five slow and easy pumps to stretch out. Then I figured I had the range and did twenty fast and smooth lifts as Alex nodded approval.

"You're doing fine, Jack."

"Yeah. Feels good. Gonna tick it up to fifty-five, OK?"

"Smart move. Some chowderheads would go right up to a hundred and tear themselves. Go ahead."

Another iteration of that and Alex figured I knew what I was doing and left me to my own devices. He came back twenty minutes later just as I was finishing up a thirty lift sequence at seventy-five kilograms. He handed me a water bottle and a towel and observed as I sat up, drank and mopped, "You weren't bullshitting about being in the groove. You really gonna be as busy as you say? You could do the weight-lifting team some good, you know. We lost a couple of great guys graduating last year and you'd sure help fill the hole."

"Alex, I'd love to but I really can't. I couldn't even put in the training time, much less traipse all over New England and the Maritimes during competition."

"Well, all right. But if your schedule gets loose, think about it, OK?"

"Will do. Now, lemme check out that treadmill."

The treadmill was similarly easy to figure out - after all, those machines were designed to be easy for J. Random Jock to operate so I had no trouble at all. One amusing thing about them was the virtual reality system. Not only was there the usual 3D audio/visual headgear but the thing had a pretty clever humidity/temperature controlled compressed air dispenser along with some sunlamps to simulate the feel of the environs you'd be pretending to run through.

After looking through the locales menu, I decided to get out of New England. I spent the next forty minutes running along the ocean shoreline at Cocoa Beach, Florida. Ten kilometers of a nice warm sea breeze, the breaking of waves and squawking of seagulls overhead - and off in the distance, Merritt Island with its VAB and Launch Complex 39. The site of past glories, and the promise of glory to come for me.

I threw back my head and gloried in the sweat and deep breathing as I kept up my 'running through town because I'm always short on time' pace. For the duration of that run, Mineral Village was two thousand kilometers behind me and the future was almost within touching distance.

Life is damned good, old man. Damned good.

---

Of course after that workout and the glorious cold shower that followed, I was ravenous. But starting in on my first Northgate cafeteria breakfast in four years, I discovered a downside to my new life. Two bites of scrambled eggs and I was back to the serving area holding out my plate to a server in puzzlement.

"Pardon me ma'am, but something's wrong with these eggs."

"Like what?" drawled the bored looking lady.

"They taste off. Like detergent got in 'em or something."

"Nobody else has complained this morning." She yelled to a co-worker. "Hey Louie! Anyone bitchin' about the scrambled today?"

"Nah! Why should they? Eggs came out of the truck right into the locker last night."

She turned back to me with that 'you gonna be a troublemaker?' face. "Ya want something else then?"

I took my tray and waved her off as I walked away. I'd figured it out. Nearly a year of eating fresh as could be eggs from natural fed range chickens had spoiled my taste for the stored, preserved, antibiotic-ed, growth-hormoned and goodness knows what else-ed eggs of everyday city life.

I went over to the condiments table and poured on the salt, black pepper and tabasco. It helped a little. But not a lot. Right down to this day, I haven't minded paying top price for the highest grade all-natural eggs I can get.

---

The rest of the day was shaping up to be easy. Aunt Maureen finally returned my call as I finished up breakfast and after a brisk exchange of vital information (like my new address) she invited me over for Sunday dinner and rang off as soon as I'd accepted. She was one of the few women I've ever known who disliked talking on the phone. I figured that was about the only social contact I'd get for the day. Most of the faculty and students in my department were away for the break - Dr. J said he'd probably hit the ski trails with the wife starting Sunday - and I'd not see Josh until at least sundown. He was mucho observant on the Sabbath so he felt he could cut loose and do as he liked the other six days. Like, I grinned to myself, another rocket geek I knew pretty well. Well, I had enough to keep me busy that day - and keep busy I did. Along with taking a little detour of the psyche along the way.

---

Ah, the main library. How many thousands of hours of my life have I spent inside those simple red brick walls? How many millions of words and symbols have I devoured sitting at those pasteboard tables in that white high arched reading room? Probably it comes in third, after my current company and my childhood home, as the place I've spent the most time in.

Heading through that reading room up the stairs to the second floor sci-tech stacks was second nature to me. They hadn't changed the layout from my undergraduate days, so I was on autopilot as I collected texts for prospective courses from the QA and TL shelves and claimed a table. There was little competition, the whole floor contained just a handful of grubby geeks like myself with nowhere else to go (or nowhere else they wanted to go) on inter-semester break. So I took a nice large table in an alcove next to the railing from where I could look down on the ground floor, spread out the texts and my notebooks and lost myself for four hours.

One reason I'd chosen an 'eagle's nest' kind of location is a long time quirk of mine. When I need a little break from the wheels going around in my head, I like to unwind for a moment by looking at what other people nearby are doing. However, I'd learned early on the hard way (hard fists, that is) that some people don't take being stared at too kindly. Solution: choose an out of the way place where you can easily see them but they have to work to see you. Back then, my vision was really acute so from my perch I could see perfectly the goings on on the ground floor.

There didn't seem to be much going on down there. There were only a few people in the main reading room and a good number of them were staff. I'd give it all the once over for a few seconds, then thusly refreshed would re-concentrate on my books. But after a couple of hours, it sunk in that several times I'd seen girls leaving little vases of flowers on a desk down there. So once I'd pretty well finished my investigations - I'd selected a couple of courses in addition to my math one - I kinda kept one eye on that desk.

And a few minutes later, some motion down on the floor caught my full attention. It was yet another girl putting yet another small vase of blooms on that already over-floral surface. She stood there for a minute, then turned and walked into the stacks and out of my sight. 'Ah,' I said to myself, 'girly sentimentality in action.' Celebrating someone's birthday most likely.

It was past noon and I was thinking about lunch - a light one given my sedimentariness all morning. Something, I pondered while gathering my notes together, of a green leafy nature with perhaps a little seafood on the side. Something the Northgate could provide.

I was back down the stairs and about to head for the exit when I realized that the desk that had attracted so much attention that morning was just a few meters away. Curiosity got the best of me - it had blossomed most lushly - and I decided to walk over to take a look at the library's latest attraction. As I approached the desk, I saw that there was a large picture frame propped up in the center, facing away from me. Since nobody was sitting there, I unhesitatingly went right around...

...and had one of those major "O.M.G." moments. When I saw who the picture was of, I just plain lost it for a moment.

Perhaps it's not a surprise to you that it was a photo of Mary.

Another one of those things I had thought was just a figure of speech until that moment was the world swimming around my head. But that's exactly what happened. I had to grasp the back of a chair to steady myself for a moment before I could focus on what was - yes, a shrine to Mary.

The picture was such a shock partly because of how she appeared in it. Depicted there was no broody, withdrawn girl - not even a shy one caught in surprised shock by an unexpected camera. She was sitting, apparently, right at the desk where the picture stood, wearing that blue suit I'd seen her buried in. She wore the same long braid and thick-lensed glasses I knew so well, but her face! She was cheerful, puckishly humorous even - the mood underlined by the couple of texts on mycology she had balanced on the tip of her index finger. That was not the picture of someone a few days - or even weeks - away from being a suicide.

On consideration, I just knew it had to have been taken by someone Mary liked well enough to be comfortably cheerful with. I remembered Karen saying a couple of times that when Mary got used to someone, she could be quite the clown around them. It would seem that she'd found someone like that there.

I'd been right the first time - I remembered that the day before had been - would have been - her 24th birthday. Her presents - the little vases and bowls of flowers - surrounded her, and at the top of the picture frame was a caption done in extravagantly feminine handwriting.

I must have been quite lost looking into those teasing deep black eyes of hers as I got shaken out of a kind of reverie by the hushed voice of a young woman.

"Did you know her?"

"Huh? Uh...say again, please?" I looked to my right to see a bleached blonde mop of hair sitting on a pudgy teen face. She had yet another vase of flowers - violets - in her hands. Violets whose deep purple color was matched by an expression that knew enough to be sad, and not yet enough to know resignation.

She repeated. "Did you know Mary?"

"Uh...we were acquainted."

She looked away from me, staring at Mary. "Yesterday was her birthday, you know. I wish I could have given these to her in person. She was so nice. She had a good word for everybody. She'd help anyone with schoolwork who asked her. Everyone liked her."

She went on in a whisper. "She...she did it to herself you know." I nodded. "Why? Why would she do that? Everyone liked her. What could lead her to do that?"

"God only knows."

---

I'm not going to kid you, after that encounter with a past that I'd really wanted to leave behind me, I was shaken up pretty good. My first impulse in fact was to fall back into another habit of my recent past - specifically to head to the nearest place with booze on tap and toss back a few stiff ones.

And my feet were leading me right to that place, the student center where I knew that the Life After Twenty lounge on the second floor served beer and wine to those of us of an age to legally indulge - then as now, the university was pretty liberal about such things(besides, it was a profitable business for them.) I'd gotten into the main entrance and was at the foot of the staircase to the second floor where the lounge was when I caught myself.

Negative. I didn't come here to drink myself silly.

Having lived through a few decades since that time, and having gone through the usual paces of living in a world overflowing with people - making a few friends, a few enemies and a lot of 'operational' acquaintances and associates, loving a few times, hating a few times, helping others occasionally, royally screwing others over a few times - the thought of Mary to me now (apart from Winter 5s) is just an old regret and a dull ache. One of those damn things that people do to each other because it was kinda in the stars and we're too thoughtless and callous to put in the effort to pull a situation out of the hands of fate and into our own.

Then, I certainly didn't have the detachment that comes of too many years and too much wearing down of the spirit. Hell, three weeks before, she'd been alive right in that very campus. And before she'd iced herself, Karen and I had been on fire together. The whole thing was still front and center in my mind. And I'd had enough.

I was simply sick and tired of feeling guilty over her! The more I reflected over the matter, the madder I got - at her! I mean, it wasn't my place to judge her for killing herself - who can tell another person that they have to keep on taking the intolerable? But the way she went out, throwing out those spiteful letters at me and Karen - God only knows what she'd written Karen, blaming her as she apparently did for it all. But it must have been pretty rough seeing the effect it'd had on her. Why, Mary had ruined our thing! So I was thinking at the time.

Once you get a good head of spitefulness going, it really goes. Damn her! I had been this far from pulling off a marriage with Karen. If it hadn't been for Mary fouling her spirit up so she went a bit crazy and cheated on me, the thing would already be a done deal - so I told myself. Why, I thought, if we could have had a decade together as a forgiven and respected family, I'd have surely made enough scratch to own the whole damn village - in the form of having everyone obligated - or even in hock - to me. Happiness, fortune, status - Mary had taken it all away from me with a length of rope! Yeah, I was pissed at her.

I'm sure as hell not gonna get loaded mourning that crazy little nerd! Screw her!

Thus fortified with spirits stronger and much more toxic than booze, I turned my back on the lounge and arrogantly marched into the campus bookstore.

---

I've never been a shopaholic. When people call me tight with a G - stingy even - I plead guilty as charged. Having lost a life's savings to a crook, then having built up two enterprises by hand does that to you. I live light - I still live in a rented apartment (elegant and safe, I'm willing to pay for that) and all my stuff could easily fit into a minivan. So when you see my sorry mug in a store, you can bet the farm that I've got a shopping list of essentials in hand.

Textbooks were at the top of that list. Pausing at an empty counter before I proceeded, I got out the computer and pre-registered for the courses I had an eye on, then headed on to the courseware aisles and loaded myself down with dead-tree knowledge (damn good thing I was strong, the PDE course alone called for three big mother texts each pushing 2000 pages.)

Clothes were the next acquisition - I needed a new wardrobe as my shirts of '19 were too tight around the chest and my pants of same year were waaay too loose. Ties, fortunately, don't become unwearable with a little change in body form. And of course - of course - I had to have a replacement orange and blue school baseball cap for the one I'd left with Karen.

'You think she's really wearing it around the village?'

'Wouldn't put it past her to flip people off that way. Yeah, I can see it.'

She was still more a little bit in my mind - and my pants had gotten just a little tighter - when I saw it reach out from its resting place on the magazine rack and grab my attention by the lapels. World Dance. It was a tabloid sized thing whose glossy cover sported a Chinese troupe performing (judging from the costumes and backdrop) some Carmen derived performance with the banner headline announcing, 'Beijing National goes European Classical for '21.' Call me a romantic or a nice guy or whatever, but I ironically observed to myself that the man is supposed to take the initiative. She wasn't a bad sort really and we'd parted friends. Why not drop her a friendly note? So the magazine ended up on top of my math books and new clothes.

OK, I might be tight with cash, but while there I did treat myself to a bit of self-indulgence in the form of flakeyness from my undergrad days. I picked up a copy of The New Age is Dead! Rigorous Astrology for the New Century. The text that old kook Professor Walliston had assigned for that History of Science course so long ago. The masterwork of an author who had been one of those colorful figures of the late oughts/early teens and the prof had attended a few of his soirées down in Boston and got hooked. He always signed with his initials, which suggested either plumbing or fetishware. He'd been a nobody until the late oughts when depending on who you talked to he'd either caught fire or gone completely batty.

I'd heard about those courses or lectures or psychic barroom brawls or whatever you want to call them. The guy was brash and opinionated as hell and let fly against all his predecessors. Theosophists, analytical psychologists, fortune-tellers, he dripped scorn for and spewed venom at them all. His opponents would show up and they'd throw charts and insults at each other for hours on end. For example, from his Cosmic Horsedump lecture series of June-July '10:

"Flush the mealy-mouthed evasions right down the can. Wherever Saturn is in a chart, that's where the crap is. Sitting right on the native's head like ten thousand tons of steaming stinking bricks! Telling him that it's a 'opportunity for learning' is fraud pure and simple! That kind of garbage is why they call us swindlers - and quite rightly!"

Unintelligible shouting from the audience.

"That doesn't even rise to the level of bullshit! You're telling your clients that?! They should sue your lying ass off - and I'll be a witness for them! Why don't you go off and paint pretty pastel pictures of zodiacal fairies and leave us serious astrologers alone!"

In the process, he developed his own idiosyncratic elaborations of classical stellar lore with the aid of some quantum theory and molecular genetics ("A faker is someone who drivels about 'quantum consciousness' while not even being able to solve the hydrogen atom by hand!") and had gathered something of a cult around himself. It came to a bad end as all those things do. In '12 he'd stepped into the trap that too many esoterically minded shooting-stars do and publicly predicted the imminent end of the world. He and a group of the faithful hightailed it together out of Beantown and up to a crude encampment in the North woods to wait it out. There, he'd simply vanished one day without a trace. But the world obstinately refused to obey his calculations and once 'zero-day' had come and gone, the rest sheepishly returned to civilization. From hence to spread rumours about their master's vanishment. Space aliens. Hidden cave-dwelling races. Ascended masters. The whole crackpotted smack. Personally, I think he just wandered off into the wrong part of the woods and the wolves got him.

---

After dumping my loot off at the dorm room - Taka was nowhere in evidence - I got another errand done. I let myself into the basement labs at Shepard Hall - shirt wrapped bottle of Aja wine in my backpack - appropriated a chemical storage dewar of the right size, slid in the bottle and sealed it.

Handing it to the lone technician doing the lonely (but well renumerated at overtime rates) inter-semester shift, I fibbed that it was a long running experiment with storable propellants. Not totally a lie - alcohol has been used for rocket fuel before. He looked over the environmental control program I'd handed him and chuckled.

"Did I get something wrong?"

"Nope. It's just that these conditions are perfect for storing fine wine."

"Fancy that. Shepard Hall having its own wine cellar."

We laughed together at that one.

---

Going up to the first floor, the place was a graveyard. All the faculty offices, including Doctor Jenkin's, were dark and locked. Fortunately, the second floor lounge was still open - and as it was past sundown, Josh was camped out on his spot on the sofa, quaffing a bottle of tonic while reading a copy of Aerospace Weekly. We got in a few friendly jabs at each other as I got my cup of Navy coffee, then got down to the question of holidays.

"You staying over here, Josh?"

"Nah, I'm taking the red-eye back home tonight. Good thing you got here when you did, I'm about to leave for the airport."

"What the hell did Cleveland ever do to deserve the fate of hosting the Josh-man during the holidays?"

"Blame my mother. Dad wanted to move to New York but Mom always hated the place. While they were quarreling, I burst on the scene. Then the rest of my folks wouldn't let them take me away. 'You, you can go to the big apple already. Who'll miss you? But dear little Joshua stays right here!'"

I didn't succeed in holding back my laughter too well. "When were you ever little? What did you weigh at birth? Ten keys?"

He winked. "It's a state secret. If I told you, I'd have to kill you afterwards." He got serious. "You just missed Dr. J. He boogied out of here fifteen minutes ago."

"Off to the slopes with the wife?"

"Yep. He was a little concerned for you with the holidays coming on - thinking you might get lonely and depressed hanging out here."

"Nice of him but it's not a problem. I've got some big honkin' math books to keep me warm."

"You're not going anywhere?"

"Nope. This burg is home for me, remember? Probably have Christmas dinner with my aunt. Other than that, I'll get down to some serious tooling and get ready to show those punk kids what us Venture bums are made of!"

He got to his feet and started for the door. "Tortoise and hare. Except you're both in one. Those kids won't know what hit 'em come next semester. Well, I'm off. I'm thinking about coming back before New Years. There's only so much of that old time family togetherness I can take before I get nauseous."

I smirked. "Not to mention the cream puffs."

He laughed. "I've never met a dozen of those I can't handle. I call you when I get back. Happy holidays, bang-bang!"

Left alone, I leafed through the journals for a moment while downing the joe, then gave it up, quenched the lights and headed back to Baxter.

There's no place like home for the holidays...

---

Taka was on station behind his desk when I got back. We exchanged a few casual pleasantries before he returned his attention to the tediously incriminating conversations of Bob Ehrlichman and James Dean and all the rest of those old-time sleezy pols. Sitting at my desk, I glanced first at those monster math books, then at the copy of World Dance. Math. Karen. Math. Karen. Back and forth.

Young as I was then, I was still capable of lying to myself pretty good. What it really was was - Mary's memory. Respect it. Spite it. Respect it. Spite it.

After a couple of minutes of that, I put on my new cap, picked up pen and paper (that was no job for a word processor!) and proceeded to write.

Yeah, I'd taken a good long pause and a good hard think before writing that last paragraph. I was telling myself I was merely trying to show her some kindness and respect and nothing further was meant or would happen between us. I was lying to myself like a trooper. For the second time, I was reaching out to Karen in order to spite someone. And that time, I was spiting a dead woman. Real, real smart, huh? Never say I'm not capable of making the same kind of mistake twice.

Besides, I rationalized, there's no chance of us getting together again and she knows it. We're too far apart.

Dumbass kid. A thirteen hour boat/bus ride is a piece of cake for a desperately lonely woman who thinks that kindness and tenderness lie at the end of it.

Dumbass kids. They have to take so much damage before they even start to get a clue about how life really works.

I sealed the letter, stuck it in the magazine which I stuck into a manila envelope upon which I wrote her address and some made-up return address, Acadian Magazine Distributors or some such thing. I made a quick run with it downstairs to the 'stamp and post' box - inserted the envelope, then my coins - the box franked it and phoned home that it held one more outgoing piece.

And thus, to coin a melodramatic phrase, our fate was sealed.

And the evening and the morning were the second day.