131

Observation is the first step towards enlightenment, but you'll never do it correctly. You will observe only through the filter of your body's feelings and your mind's memories. Your experience colors your perceptions and there is nothing upon which you may look that isn't referenced from your own viewpoint.

So forget enlightenment. I'd recommend you try for inner peace, but that is also impossible given the turbulence of the mind.

130

The house was so much darker after they had stuffed the windows with crumpled newspaper, but it certainly kept it warmer. The front door, a leaky thing even when there had been heat, took more papers than Gerta had thought it would, but she managed it. The ill-fitting storm door was locked and then screwed shut for protection, then filled with papers pressed in place with cut cardboard as she filled it. The inside door locked tight and duct taped around the edges. But it was so cold that winter. So very cold. The old lady upstairs died. So many people did, but that was the closest death to Gerta. They buried her in the snow out back, but Gerta doubted she was still out there. Scavengers ate even the roughest of meat.

129

I keep dreaming about my old house. I wander around, the way it used to be and the way it never was, or could be. I'm looking for something lost; something I desperately want before the house is chained shut and "NO TRESPASSING" means I can't get in again. It is the house I thought would always be there. I thought my parents would always be there, watching television in the family room. Perhaps my dad would be in the basement working. Perhaps my mom would actually be in the kitchen, getting ready to call Pizza Hut. My room, always the way I left it.

They say you can never go home again, and now I know what it means. My home wasn't my home for a long time because of changes, and I prefer to remember it the way it was when I was young. When that particular shade of green was all the rage. When the appliances were golden. When the curtains were still hung and my doll house was still powered and my dog was still alive. I can go back home again in my mind. It's where my real home still sits, waiting for me.

128

The moon was a dim smudge behind the vaporous clouds. It ducked behind rooftops and peeked between bare, spindly branches. A bitter wind gusted and bit, sickened but did not die.

127

It's been two years since I've seen another human. I've given up hope that I ever will. My bones will rot in this squishy soil or be eaten by god-knows-what. I hope I'll kill whatever it is. I hope my decomposing body makes a spot that won't grow these putrid plants again. I think it will be my only vengeance on this planet that has taken so much from me.

126

The stones tasted like cold earth-heart, and she liked it. When one stone, held on her tongue, pressing against the roof of her mouth, would warm to body temperature, she would replace it with another, fresh and cool. Gala's bare feet savored the feel of dirt and leaves and twigs and stones. She stopped often to lie full-out on the forest floor, face down, arms and legs splayed.

125

I will start at the start and begin at the beginning, if it is what you will, and I know it is since you were always a stickler for first things first.

I first saw your mother when she was just a girl, though I didn't know she would become your mother. My first impression was that she was a brat. A dirty brat with skinny legs and ratty hair that hung over her crabby face. It's a good thing I didn't think that way forever, or you'd never have been born!

Shara was unruly and wherever she went, she stirred up trouble. This continued for her whole life. It is probably why you have rebelled by being so straight-laced, but I digress. The beginning begins with your mother nearly dying, and your father being a hero.