Washington D.C. Sketchbook: February 2012

fiction - all characters are fictional with any resemblance coincidental.

IN THE COMPANY OF WOMEN –

A VALENTINE’S DAY STORY

INTRODUCTION.
(The Chorus)

The nine lives of ann geddes exposed babies flowering in fields, so that when the world forgets us, innocence will still all heal; yet before the end of the game, i wish i had the chance, to give our baby a name, and to change my fate's circumstance;

lola, flora and leslie ann (pixils one and the same), hepburn, parrish and baby-maker ann, our illusions unmapped and sought in vain; my patron saint was the best of us, illusions that i did know, the others were the rest of us, tria juncta in uno.

CHAPTER 1.

The lights dimmed. A short woman with a tight fitting but proper dress tapped a microphone at the podium.

“We are so pleased to have with us here today…”

“Her boyfriend just broke up with her,” Leslie Ann whispered to me.

“She’s having the next day post break-up closure talk.”

“What?”

Someone kicked the back of my chair.

”Shhhhhush!”

“Closure. She’s getting closure, what every decent person gives another in a break-up...”

“I can’t hear you…”

“Shussh!”

My chair was kicked again.

“And now, let’s give a warm welcome to Ed Ruscha!”

The audience applauded and a boyish, rugged man in jeans walked to the podium.

“I won’t be taking questions,” he said.

“Don’t like questions.”

“Change happens,” he said. “I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.”

A lush canvas of a bay appeared, spectacular in its untouched, virginal quality.

“Thomas Cole,” he said.

“The bay became populated by tradesmen who seemed industrious and pure. Then it became a metropolis, overrun, garish. And then it was decimated. The course of empires,” he said. “Now here’s my rip-off, not one-tenth as good.”

Cartoonish blowups of partially seen industrial buildings were flashed on the screen. Sunoco. Shell. Getty.

“That was the 1950s,” he said. Then came the same buildings but with brighter pastel colors and what appeared to be Chinese, Korean and Japanese signs printed on them.

“Change happens,” he said.

The lights went up and I saw Kirsten, a heavy hipped dirty blond who regarded me closely.

She had biting brown eyes with lights in them.

She must have taken her seat during the lecture and I hadn’t noticed.

She was whispering to my girlfriend while keeping her eyes on me. Leslie Ann sat up and leaned back.

“This is Kirsten,” she said in a melancholy minor key. Apparently, I needed no introduction.

We nodded hello before getting up to all get our exhibition catalogues signed.

As people approached Ruscha, they attempted to make enthusiastic noises.

One woman insisted on having two children photographed with him.

He smiled grimly but remained silent, signing with his name and three bold lines underneath.

He signed our catalogues too.

Exiting the museum Leslie Ann leaned over and whispered into my ear: “I love you more than you know."

She pulled me close.

Kirsten looked ahead.

She seemed to know something but wasn't talking.

We went home.

Silent.

CHAPTER 2.

Her name was Leslie Geddeschelli and she moved to Washington, D.C. from a little town in Scotland.

The town itself is supposed to be cold and grey and grim, but its claim to fame is a huge feast that takes place each December.

This is the feast of Saint Leslie Ann of Geddes.

It is celebrated in Geddes, Scotland each year on December 10 because on that date in 1478, Philotheus of Pskov, a monk in Saint Petersberg, Russia, wrote a letter of prophecy to Ivan III.

Among other things, he predicted that Russia would become "a Third Rome" when Saint Leslie Ann of Geddes is restored to her "rightful" place in the Canon of Saints.

It's apparently a complicated and mystical tale full of contradictions and not much sense, but legend has it that the Knights of Saint Leslie Ann, who devoted their lives and fortunes to her, buried a huge treasure there in the 1400’s.

The legend lives on and each year thousands gather on December 10 to pay homage to the Saint Leslie Ann of Geddes before getting rip-roaring drunk and going out into the bogs on a treasure hunt.

So far, not a candlestick has been found. But the treasure hunters keep coming back for the ale, the fellowship and the dream of easy riches.

But I digress.

My Leslie Ann arrived from Scotland (she said) to study art.

I felt it indiscreet to ask more and she never offered details.

I found that when I asked anything of a personal nature she would change the subject.

If I persisted her face scrunched up and I got the feeling she was considering how to exit - not the room but the relationship.

I was drawn to her and didn't want to risk it.

She said she loved baroque maps.

She said she was finding herself.

She was my mystery, and maybe, I thought, she'd have to find herself before I could find her?

Or so I rationalized.

We first met in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. in front of Ginevra de Benci by Leonardo Da Vinci.

The painting is about three feet by two feet.

It is the only Leonardo in the Americas.

Ginevra lacks the aura of her cousin, the better known Mona Lisa.

But her face is nonetheless moody and distant and mysterious.

We were the only ones standing in front of it on a rainy Sunday afternoon.

We both stared intently.

I was just about to move on when she said, "The water."

You'd think I'd respond "what?" or just grunt, because after-all, what do I know about anything?

But I knew exactly what she meant.

"I know," I answered.

To sound clever I added, "virtue is beauty."

I cheated on that last bit - that is what Leonardo wrote on the back of the portrait.

For some reason I wanted to show off.

But she knew more than me.

She smiled.

"It is in his understanding of water that Leonardo shows his understanding of human nature.

More than any saint or Buddha or writer or artist or psychologist, Leonardo gets it, and shows it though his wondrous depiction of water.

There is an obsession there, a revelation of a unifying, vital force in the face of man's impotence."

Well, those are the words that Leslie used in describing the painting to me.

I couldn't have chosen those words, but they mirrored my thought and I knew.

What I knew was that when I looked into her eyes I saw the universe.

And, I was in love.

Leslie Ann had brown hair tightly pulled back, brown eyes, wide hips and a wider smile.

She reminded me of a Renaissance portrait wearing pointy-rimed glasses and a corduroy skirt.

After that first encounter we spent the day wandering the gallery.

We met up every day afterwards at the same spot and then she would give me a tour of a new section of the gallery, lecturing with a profound sense of earnestness.

A week later, in front of the Jackson Pollack in the East Wing, she told me she loved me more than I knew.

It came out just like that.

I leaned in to kiss her and we made out until a guard politely asked us to "find a room."

I was completely average; balding, aging, boring.

I wanted to believe the illusion despite my rational sense, so when she asked that afternoon to move in with me, I agreed.

She had been staying with a friend and we went to gather her things.

We walked arm in arm to my apartment in Adams Morgan and made love nonstop for a week.

We shared movies.

Her favorite was The Goonies.

We cooked.

Her favorite was eggplant.

She rubbed my back while I washed the dishes until she got tired.

I loved her.

One day she met me after work (she spent her days reading about art and writing about Leonardo as part of her PhD thesis in progress from Oxford) and as we were walking home we passed a strip club and I said in a serious way (I was always too serious), "Stripping is a form of feminist empowerment."

I was well-read in feminist theory.

She wrinkled her nose and laughed.

"Have you been there?" she asked.

"No," I answered truthfully. "Only my married male friends go. They're miserable."

She laughed again and I pulled her close.

She radiated contentment in her Steve McQueen dress, Milan black leather jacket and Fratelli Rossetti shoes.

I noticed since she moved in that my wallet had been getting lighter but I couldn't bring it up.

Once I tried to say something ("That $1,700 could have been a trip to Paris") and got the death stare indicating that she would be happy to leave if I had a problem.

I wanted her to stay.

I said, "It's okay, really."

She seemed to meet people easily (unlike me).

Six months after moving in together, she took me to a cocktail hour at some snazzy Georgetown spot.

I sat in a corner, never very social.

But I loved to watch her play the crowd.

I carried my sketch pad and would make drawings of her and enjoy her "oooing and ahhhing" over them afterwards.

But this time was different.

As I watched her I saw her best friend, a loud, dizzy blond named Andrea Higginbotham, from Hanssenfjeldt-Feyling, Norway, come up veritably bursting with excitement.

Andrea looked like she could hardly contain herself:

"I met the perfect guy for you...do you want to be set up with someone cute, funny and rich?"

The word "rich" seemed drawn out and exaggerated.

Without missing a beat my Leslie Ann screamed in response, "Okay!"

It all seemed then to play in slow motion.

Surely she knew I could hear her.

But I loved her.

I sat quietly.

I was glad Leslie Ann had a friend.

Andrea was my neighbor but they had met at the Social Safeway caressing the melons.

Before the party I often saw them laughing together and derived happiness each time.

To them America was something shiny and new.

I envied their faith.

My faith was in Saint Ignatius: death, guilt and loss.

When we left the bar that evening I never brought the conversation up with Leslie Ann.

Because, then it would be real.

A few months later Leslie left me.

She sent me an email at work: "I don't know why, but it's over."

I called her and sobbed into her voice mail that I loved her.

I was sincere. I was deeply in love.

"Why?" I wept.

She never answered.

She moved out before I got home and I never saw her again.

I became an emotional zombie.

For a year I wrote her love letters (well, emails) every week, some self-pitying, some self-blaming.

Then her lawyer, a silverback Butch named "Jim Gallagher Harris Reed" called, threatening me.

I heard through the grapevine later on that Leslie moved in with a blue-blood named Nat.

He majored in the art of bullshit at Princeton University and Georgetown.

Now he runs a hedge fund called Number 9 in Boston. I saw his photo in a magazine.

Nat has rich, blond hair and loves to tell everyone that, "life is grand" and that he's related to former President Franklin Pierce.

He collects wives and Currin and Yusksavage nudes.

I don't think he has any interest in Leonardo’s work.

Now I question, did Leslie ever really, either?

I wonder if he's rich enough for her?

Nat has a palatial estate on the Cape overlooking Oyster Bay.

I imagine that he gives her a shopping allowance for when he works late.

When he was arrested for running a ponzi scheme, the press reported that he showers thousands on escorts, massage parlors and strippers.

So, I guess he is pretty rich.

I love the aesthetic illusion I had of her, my Saint Leslie Ann of Geddes, wanderjhar.

Even though I know she never thinks of me, I often I find myself absent-mindedly saying her name and wondering if she is okay.

I still love her, a reflection that I needed to see as the ocean of God, and always will.

And then, in the practice of nonattachment, I close my eyes and let the memory wash away.

Let it rain.

CHAPTER 3.

"What does it mean to give up the ghost? To exhale?" Francois wondered.

It was Autumn; Francois picked at her cold eggplant and looked out the windows at the restless darkness which hung over dead branches littering Central Park.

“No muggers here in Trump Towers,” she thought, “not counting all the investment bankers in the building.”

She laughed and looked at her dark reflection in the huge plate glass window.

She saw a short, squat, black woman of twenty-eight staring back.

She thought back to high-school when she was bullied mercilessly with the name, “Troll” and "Thunder Thighs". Despite that, she had gathered the courage to ask Jeremy Geddes out to the prom.

He was an artist and seemed sensitive and kind.

He responded with a look of deep sincerity, asking her why she actually thought he would want to go to the prom with a woman with a troll's body.

Ever since then, Francois hated people.

"I'll use them. I'll destroy them," became her motto.

Autumn became Francois' favorite season.

She exhaled and imagined herself becoming one with Autumn's power over life.

The power of control.

"I am the executioner," she murmured.

Just then the front lock clicked.

“Francois?” a voice called. It was her boss, Jim Gallagher Harris Reed.

Reed insisted that people address her by her full name.

Except, to Reed's lovers and interns, she was simply called, "Jim."

Reed walked into the combined living room-dining room, throwing her bag onto the sofa.

“Sweetheart, I’m glad you’re still here. I got stuck in traffic.”

She took off her blazer, tossing it to the floor and began to unbutton her blouse.

“What a day.”

Reed walked over to Francois and lifted her chin, planting a lingering kiss, then she took a seat in the velvet dining room chair opposite her.

Reed kicked off her heels.

“You got dinner. Good,” Reed said.

She reached her hand into Francois’s glass and pulled out two ice cubes, popping them into her mouth.

“So, what’s the schedule for tomorrow?" Reed asked, crunching the ice in her mouth. "We’re meeting with that Leslie Geddeschelli girl, right?”

“11 am” Francois said.

Reed lifted her feet under the table onto Francois' lap. "Massage," she commanded.

“I don’t pay you enough as an intern,” Reed said, stretching her arms.

Her toes tingled at Francois' fingertips.

“So, did you look at the emails?”

“Yeah, pretty pathetic stuff, his whining on and on about some childhood abuse, how he wants to explain it her.”

“The abuse excuse, huh? So he breaks up with her then blames it on a sorry childhood. Now he wants to get back together. Get closure. What a f**king loser. This will be loads of fun. Payback time.”

Reed chewed her ice cube and stretched her neck back. "Payback for all the fucking men out there."

“Payback?” Francois asked.

Her hands moved up to Reed’s calves and began massaging them.

“Cut them off at the balls. Take them down one at a time.”

Reed stood up and stretched.

“Geez almost midnight, time to crash. I’m taking a shower.”

“Okay,” Francois said, “I need to take off anyway.”

“Not this late. Stay.” Reed said.

She began to walk to the bedroom.

She stopped in the doorway and looked back at Francois.

“I saw her picture, no wonder he wants her back.

Now into the bedroom with you!”

Reed snapped her wrist as if cracking a whip. “Giddyup!”

Francois gave a weak smile and thought to herself: “As soon as you pull the strings to get me into Harvard Law, just you wait, bitch.”

“Coming, Jimmy, dear” Francois said, pushing her eggplant aside.

CHAPTER 4.

“Hello?” Jim Gallagher Harris Reed asked.

She entered the reception area of the law firm with Francois sulking behind her.

Jim subtly touched the broach around her neck and let her fingers linger before sticking the tip of her index onto her lips in a confused, girlish manner.

Leslie stood up from the leather couch and stuck out her hand.

“Sweetheart, I’m so sorry,” Reed said, embracing her.

Jim Reed then stepped back, imperceptibly brushing Leslie’s cheek.

“Don’t worry, sweetheart, we’ll get him.”

Jim was dressed in her favorite brown suit to match her newly colored silver short, spiky hair.

She looked over to the shorter woman standing next to Leslie.
“You must be Ms. Alice Riener from the referring clinic," she said.

Alice nodded, stern. She was a knight on a crusade.
Reed looked her up and down and shrugged. "Come on back to the conference room,” she said, pivoting.

As they entered the conference room, Reed motioned to Francois who was glumly holding open the door.
“This is Francois, my intern. She’s applying to Harvard Law School.

I'm going to get her in, if she behaves.”

Reed gave a brief flirtatious smile to all of them.

Francois blushed.

Francois walked over to Leslie and awkwardly embraced her as Leslie was about to take a seat.

“I’m so sorry,” Francois said. “We’ll crucify him for you.”

The conference room had a dark, walnut table surrounded by plush, black leather chairs.

Expansive windows looked down towards New York’s Financial District.

“What a powerful view!” Leslie said.

“Yes, but on 9-11 it looked like a crematorium down there,” Reed answered.

For a moment everyone shook their heads, knights in solemn comradeship.

Leslie looked over to the wall and saw a painting of a knight on a horse lancing a dragon.

Jim Reed followed her eyes.

“My father brought that from Germany when he came over in the late 1940s,” she said. "Let's sit down."

They seated themselves, knights at a roundtable.

Jim fluffed her spiky hair and said, “Nearly fifty emails over a year. Pouring his heart out. Asking for closure. Understanding." Reed snorted. "Outrageous abuse. The threat is in the consistency, the unrelenting nature. Was he violent when he was with you too?”

“No.” Leslie said.

“Sweetheart, this is classic predator behavior.

Contacting him again in any way would only encourage him. This is abuse and we’re going to get the bastard.

This is manipulative and controlling.”

“Well, we lived together for six months and he always wanted his apartment to be kept clean.” Leslie said.

“I’m so sorry sweetheart,” Reed said. “He's a classic predator.”

Leslie scrunched her brow. “I've moved on,” she said.

“Sweetheart, leave it to me, I'll tell you what we'll do. Getting back at him will feel sweet, I promise.”

Jim reached across the table and lightly stroked Leslie's hand.

At the sensation of touch, Jim felt moisture build between her legs; she was wet.

"The thrill of destroying a man is the best orgasm", she thought. After this was over, after a decent interval, she would invite Leslie to dinner at her apartment.

It would be delicious.

And then perhaps a weekend at her Princeton cottage together?

Maybe even her consort at her Vassar reunion? Her lip trembled at the thought.

“Thank you,” Leslie said.

"Thank you, sweetheart" Jim whispered.

Leslie closed her eyes and thought of her planned future: a wealthy husband, a loft in Trump Towers, a cottage near Princeton University.

Maybe she would even have a child or two (if her husband insisted), and she could volunteer at the Met.

And when the kids grew older she could teach.

Then divorce of course, but by then alimony from her corporate lawyer would provide a nice sinecure.

Maybe Reed could introduce her to a suitable prospect.

“I feel so safe here. Thank you,” Leslie said.

She allowed the soft leather to embrace her.

She exhaled.

CHAPTER 5.

It was all very “hush, hush”.

There was even a vintage World War II poster in one of the hallways: “Loose lips sink ships.”

The interesting thing is that I never applied what I was doing to my own life.

Looking back now, I know why: never underestimate the power of denial, as the saying goes.

True, denial is powerful, and for each action there is an opposite equal reaction.

When denial breaks, the flood can wipe you out.

I was explaining this to Jeremy, not word for word like this, but pretty much along these lines.

We were in a park in Manhattan, a short walk from the courthouse.

It was lunch break and my lawyer had told me to get some fresh air and to think.

As the rain fell, I wondered if the rain drops could feel anxiety just before they splattered into the pavement?

“Dude, how’s it going,” he asked.

“Not well,” I said.

In the months leading up to the court hearing I fell into a profound depression.

As a scientist I understood the roots of depression, and could have gotten medication, but I held off since I felt it wasn’t clinical depression but traumatic overload.

I craved empathy.

I continued babbling to Jeremy.....

“That’s difficult,” Jeremy said.

His friend stopped playing, picked up his guitar and walked over.

“I feel I should have something more impressive to say to you in response,” Jeremy told me.

His friend stood next to him, fiddling with the strap on his guitar.

At that moment a blond woman walked over and threw her arms around Jeremy’s waist.

“Hey, Theresa, guess what, this guy’s from Washington,” Jeremy said to her.

He looked at me and said, “I grew up there.”

Theresa glared. “You work for the CIA, don’t you?”

That took me aback. At the CIA we did contract work with the National Institute for Health..

As an intelligence analyst my primary task had been to analyze CIA "interrogation" videos of foreign detainees.

I don’t know if it actually had any beneficial uses in the field, but it kept the bosses happy, so I kept the results flowing out to the Directorate.

I paused.

Did I have a sign on me identifying my job?

Nah must be a joke, I thought.

“Yeah, sure, of course 007.”

“Let’s get the hell out of here.” She responded.

Jeremy hesitated.

“Look, we’ve got to go. Ah, you know, the Jews were persecuted for 3000 years and got some wisdom out of that. One thing I've learned from their wisdom is that whatever answer you’re looking for preexists, and if you can’t find it, it means you’re asking the wrong question.”

"Are you Jewish?" I asked.

"Well, a silver Jew..."

Theresa pulled at him "We're leaving now, and don't talk to us again!"

With that they left, Theresa dragging Jeremy away and his friend lolloping behind.

I arrived back at the courthouse to find my lawyer waiting outside for me.

“Good news and bad news,” he said. “She’s willing to let this drop.

She feels you've been disrespectful.

Point made, I gather.”

“And the bad news?”

As he was talking I was thinking that as an analyst with a knowledge of neurobiology I had been a fool to believe that I could reach out to her through emails and letters.

Mirroring neurons are the key to transposing empathy and can only be triggered through live facial expressions.

This is why most long-distance relationships fail: not enough face time to trigger neuron blasts.

As we approached the courtroom I heard Leslie's voice up ahead.

“Into the batcave!” she laughed as she and her entourage filed into a small conference room.

"This is freekin' hilarious!"

I recognized the voice as Kirsten's.

"I'm going to cut his balls off," another voice laughed, I assumed her lawyer's.

Someone shrieked, "yum, yum" before the door closed.

My lawyer directed me to another room.

“Wait here,” he said, and he stepped out.

After a moment, he returned.

“Alright, like I said, considering you’ll never talk to her again, it shouldn’t make any difference.

She and her friends came up with this contract.”

He passed it to me.

At the top were her name, and then a list of all her friends.

I was to agree to never talk to any of them ever again.

The blood drained out of me.

“I thought she’d want to know, I thought since she didn’t answer I must not be explaining it right…”

My voice trailed off.

“Well," my lawyer answered, "hopefully you’ve learned your lesson."

We filed into the courtroom and signed the agreement.

As I walked away I saw the butch silverback in a lawyer's suit put her arm around Leslie.

I had looked up her bio beforehand.

She liked to be called "Jim."

Jim Gallagher had attended a fifth rate law school but had a PhD in the art of bullshit from Princeton University.

She softly snorted and then almost imperceptibly stuck her index finger in her mouth before subtly moving it to the bush at the nape of Leslie's neck, tickling it in a flirty manner.

When she removed it I saw a wet spot on Leslie.

"Are you happy Sweetheart?” Jim asked.

"Yes," Leslie answered.

She looked like a lost, six year old.

"I think we made him suffer, thank you."

I wondered what part of her brain was activating neurons.

I took a last look at her sitting at the courtroom table, facing away from me.

I remembered her telling me, "I love you more than you know."

"I love you more than you know," I whispered.

I turned away like Janus from my Saint Leslie Ann of Geddes, wanderjahr.

I went through the exit.

From the courthouse, I stepped out into rush hour.

I checked my cell phone.

One message.

From my other lawyer: “Good news! The church is going to settle. They see this as a nuisance suit so the condition is that you agree to never talk about any of this. That shouldn’t be a problem, since if you give anyone a chance not to engage in a discussion of child abuse they’ll feel they dodged a silver bullet. I’ll get the papers out to you.”

Drizzle had started again and I put on my windbreaker over my suit jacket.

Hailing a cab (after a twenty minute wait): “Rockaway Beach.”

The floodgates had opened after years of suppressed emotions and my anterior cingulate cortex had taken charge.

I had regressed into a twelve year-old, needy of empathy.

I tried to explain what had happened through my outpouring of tears.

I had reached out to Leslie.

I felt I didn't have anyone else.

I was naive and idealistic.

In other words, I was wrong.

"People don't give anything for free," I thought.

Where is hope? What is the best thing you ever did for anyone? Where is truth? Where is your truth? Leslie’s istening to NPR does not translate to emotional empathy. Alienation didn't die with Camus. It is in every neighbor, friend, lover. I am excluded, a bother, an imposition of boundaries. And so are you. Trust me, at your lowest moment in life, you will be alone. Through me - through you - they'd see themselves.

I thought that as I rode in the cab to Rockaway Beach.

The sun was setting when the cab dropped me off.

I watched it slowly dip into the ocean, a flash of green and then, nothing.

"How can no one understand?" I asked myself, and the surf. "How could she not understand?"

I imagined a Simon Cowell like voice answering with annoyance: "Look this is all very tragic and dramatic but frankly you’re pathetic and no one cares."

The question I should have asked was, "why did I think anyone would?"

“Ann Geddes, Leslie Parrish, don't let me let go of your celuloid dreams. But I can't hold on... “ I thought as the surf rose around me.

The salt smelled and stung.

Sewage, seaweed wrapped itself around me. Again.

I could still feel his hands around my neck, these many years later.

His forcing me to the ground in a distant field.

His telling me over and over that he loved me as he strangled me and pushed down his pants.

I passed out.

CONCLUSION.

As the sun floods the fields, "don't give up, don't give up, don't give up," is declared by faith from the opening petals; some live in ignorance (the three good witches, to start) and some are pure evil: mara, prince of darkness, the anti-christ king james, gallagher harris reed, his counsel fay harlow and the hogwarts druids (number 9, number 9, number 9), fogarty, ilse the peircing salem witch (by way of Austria), Rob Reiner's Alice in Wonderland (hidden in The Princess Bride), and all their loyalists. But the lobes of the angry troll hiding under the icy rocks at the fjord of Saint Kirsten of Feyling can be moved still (Feyling's Twin Peaks where the troll's riotous laugh in imitation of Hannah Nielsen-Jones echos to those who choose faith over pain); So, good Wizards, keep living in faith (or in Hannah's true laugh) so the spell can be broken ...

"Saint Maggie Martel mourns her boyfriends lost...shards of broken Saint Autumn Francois turn to December's Frost," wept Antonio Calvo to Princeton University's Spanish gargoyles before his Fall (under the prosecutor's law) and before the call of Bill Zeller from his rapist's saw ... which went unanswered at Princeton;

Harry knew this because Tori declared that the Battle of Geddes Run's negative can be developed into a positive, exposing the glory of the true risen king. "Muhammed my friend -my patron saint, Leslie Ann of Geddes - it's time to tell the truth, we both know it was a girl, back in Bethlehem";

Harry then meditated through eternity on compassion and whispered: "I believe that you can love (despite the introspection, despite the pain), that you can find the roman map, the path home, the goonie's cap." What he meant was that the tarnished cross of Saint Alice of Riener, by way of Saint Joan of Arc, could be polished to its former glory and grace. Harry poured their pain into a golden chalice and drank it in.

The depression lifted.

Harry extended his hand in compassion towards Saint Leslie Ann of Geddes. He suddenly knew that the ignorance and daggers of Autumn and Kirsten and Maggie and Alice resulted from their own pain.

Stepping together through the water (shoosh, woossh, roar) he found that what lies behind Leonardo Da Vinci's Windsor Castles' waterfalls (pish, pasp, pour) is both God and Mara.

It is the experience one gives another.

He was reborn.

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