205

How dry, how dreary, how hopeless it is to see the same view day after day.  No, I revise that.  It is only hopeless to those who wish to see a new view.  Those who wish sameness and consistency and predictability revel in the same view and come to cherish it.  Those who wish to view alternative vistas, however, are slowly killed by sameness; their hope drained away, and replaced by a cold death: resignation.

To pluck oneself from the sameness takes greater and greater effort as the dreary days drag on.  An object in motion tends to stay in motion, while objects at a standstill need greater effort to budge.  Or something like that.  Sameness ossifies.  Consistency creates deeper and deeper ruts.  I will be dried, stiff and buried before I am medically dead.

204

The wind whipped Dash's hair into his face, and he tried to push it back but it wouldn't stay.  The wind seemed to have fingers that pulled at him and fingered his coat and reached into the holes to make him shiver.  Dash shifted from foot to foot, trying to move his blood back into his toes, but it was no good.  The temperature had definitely dropped and there was no warming until the ceremony was over.  Dash found his mind drifting and he forced it back to his task.  As apprentice, he stood with the ash wood staff and wished on his bones that he wouldn't have to use it.

203

It was the only road that still went under the canal.  There had been another, two counties over, but that had been filled in years ago.  Unsafe.  This was the last remaining.  It was a single, lumpy lane under a stone arch that dripped in twenty places.  It froze up good in the winter, but even at the height of summer, it was a cool as a tomb in the shade.  Though it flowed, the canal above was eerily silent.  Cars did drive on the rutted road, but not many and not often.  Some of the stones had fallen along the sides, and some old beer cans lay crushed among them.  The sky was blue, but when you got to the middle of the tunnel, you couldn't see it from either end.  The tunnel echoed and could turn any voice into a looping lament.

202

It should have been the easiest question in the world: What do you want?  I don't know.  Money?  Happiness?  Love?  Two nice pieces of thin, buttered toast cut into quarters and a glass of pulp-free orange juice?

Turns out, what I want wasn't what I thought I wanted.  I went through my thoughts and kept going back to the money thing.  They say money can't buy happiness, but it can make sure I have a nice home and a working car and food and medical care, so what the hell, money makes it so much easier to be happy.  I thought I wanted money, but that wasn't it.  I wanted to recreate the feelings of my past.  Doesn't that sound like some psychologist's b.s.?  It did to me, so I ignored it and went back to wanting money.

201

"What would you have me do?"

"Nothing."  The report spun onto the desk, stopped only by the other piles of reports and research notes.  Jonathan sputtered and Dr. Schwartz knew he was in for another round of whining and pleading.  It had been this way from the start when the board sent him his unwanted assistant.  Babysitter.  Spy.

The anger that rushed into his veins surprised him.  "I said nothing!"  At least the outburst silenced Jonathan, whose mouth snapped shut.  "Now get out."

200

Not for the first time, Natalie wondered why she was still teaching.  Not for the last time, she gave up grading to simply wander around her apartment, wishing she were less concerned about her students.  It took her days to grade a simple group of essays.  Every time she received a new set of assignments, she promised herself that she would comment lightly and get it done fast, but that never happened.  Natalie commented and explained and gave pointers at every step.  She couldn't help it, and it was killing her and reducing her salary to less than minimum wage.  She thought, not for the first time and not for the last, that being a waitress might be more profitable and less stressful.

199

The rest stop ladies' room smelled like piss and flies clustered around the bare fluorescent blubs over the cracked sink.  The bright light hurt after being in the dark for so long and her tired, oh, so tired eyes watered, but she stared at the marvel of artificial light anyway.  Marcia hovered over the filthy toilet as best she could while drip-drying and wished she had thought to bring in some napkins from the car.  The sink knobs just spun, dry as the wells around this part of the world, which, Marcia reflected, was lucky because the cloth loop provided as a way to dry clean hands was beyond disgusting and edging on to, perhaps, sentience.

Why she even bothered to try rest areas when going into the woods would be cleaner was subconsciously clear to her: it was a sign of human life.  A rare thing these days.