Water of Life

I

    Saturday in the final week of February morning breezes swept in from the Pacific over the protecting breakwater into Marina del Rey. Sailboats tugged taut lines while halyards beat on aluminum masts in the lettered basins. Boils erupted in mid-channel as seagulls dive-bombed panicked anchovies driven to the surface by schools of bonita.  High above Los Angeles rain from sullen clouds spotted dry earth and in minutes gathered into glassy, animated shapes.  Cascading torrents collecting at lofty heights to chisel arroyos before bursting into concrete spillways.  Soda cans, eucalyptus bark, shrunken avocado-corks, and living things surfed the pipeline. The flotsam burst into a massive drain, the San Gabriel River, dumping its cargo in the Pacific near the Marina.  

    At dusk they had soared from the basin to dizzying heights. She clutched his robe passing through sulking clouds that parted once revealing a network of thin red and white from coast to foothill.  The snow flakes kissing her face felt warm, and more surprising still, when they touched her tongue they felt alive. Some power had transformed favored drops into crystals and these were forming a skin over the soil.  She knew that if they had hovered perfectly still it might have been possible to hear the membrane growing. Sheltered under dark clouds the structure grew thicker above four thousand feet closing Angeles Crest Highway.  

    Justine had witnessed the power close up but now she shivered in a burgundy quilt.  She had removed Stephen Malone's unwanted message from the answering machine and retribution was swift.  She awoke to the sound of palm fronds beating stucco, then a roof tile smashing brick, and moments later a swinging shutter had broken glass.  The lights flickered twice and darkness turned solitude into unnerving panic.  Wind whistling over the chimney sounded like intimate moments with Michael.  Hands covered her ears, but she heard—whimpers and deep moans—a mockery of their love making.  A fire freed hideous shadows that scampered from wall to ceiling.   

    Fourteen years earlier, just after her twenty-sixth birthday, Stephen had swept her off her feet.  Love at first sight, unthinkable now, had rendered them inseparable.  Now there was no place in her life for the Stanford graduate who had left Atherton, San Francisco's affluent suburb, to arrive at Los Angeles's top advertising agency armed with a graduate degree and his father's investment overture. Stephen’s advertising campaigns replete with biting sarcasm aimed at Southern California’s skateboarding beach communities and sun-broiled blondes had spawned a marketing and public relations empire.  

    Justine Orman had left Pacoima High in the San Fernando Valley far behind to grace billboards tempting motorists to join the well-endowed, bikini-clad teenager at a roulette wheel in Las Vegas teasing, "I've got your number."  Beneath strawberry blonde hair a bronzed face revealed blue eyes, an exquisite nose, and lips parting over flawless white teeth. Her face smiled from women's magazines at a procession of would be suitors. There were assignments in Paris, Rome, and other wished for neighborhoods. There was always that patented smile but inside sheltered from her controlling soon-to-be-husband, agents, and her jealous legions of single females there was the hope of motherhood.  

    Justine had wanted children and marriage; she was nearing thirty and time was running out.  They tied the knot in the vine-covered hills of St. Helena and boarded her father-in-law’s private jet bound for Hawaii where she defiantly sent birth control pills river rafting at Akaka Falls. Weeks later Stephen's uncompromising directive resulted in a devastating abortion.  Part of her psyche had been destroyed along with the long sought embryo that was finally in her womb.  In the months that followed despite the best efforts of psychiatrist, Dr. Marvin Sangler, she continued replacing the loss with visions so compelling that against all odds a child had entered her consciousness.  

    The obedient wife swallowed little pills again and dismissed Stephen—friendship had never been a component of the marriage—as a lover.  Their mutual betrayal unfolded painfully punctuated with Justine’s being thrown from bed-to-carpet.  What hurt most as his laughter trailed off was the prophecy, “You’ll have that kid of yours when I let you and not before.” She knew it was true, he controlled everything. 

    Justine’s marriage went on but sharing any emotion with Stephen was never considered.  First, she retreated into books in an attempt to keep up with Stephen’s intimidating intellect and then at his urging pursued an acting career.  Drama classes at UCLA followed but as Dr. Sangler had cautioned these proved painful. She was unwilling to expose her failings to public criticism no matter how well intended or constructive.  The face and form—readily available and highly prized merchandise—were acceptable, however she was judged thin skinned and lacking in any ability to transmit honest emotion to an audience. 

    Placated by managing Stephen’s hastily formed casting agency Justine developed a talent for discovering new faces.  Secretly she knew this allowed Stephen to keep a tighter rein on his, “agitated wife”.  Her own interest in being photographed vanished after Stephen's indiscretion went public.  It took a strikingly beautiful girl of eighteen on a tabloid’s front page peering past Stephen from a bed to reopen Justine’s psyche wound.  She remembered being naked in front of a full-length mirror mystified as tears streamed down a face bearing a striking resemblance.   

    “Whose tears were they   .   .   .   my face was dry?”   

    “Might that woman be the vulnerable Justine that we’ve  talked about?”

     “You mean she’s all grown up?” 

    “Let’s say you imagined little Justine became the woman in the mirror.” 

    “I imagined the tears were hers, that she was crying for me?”     

    “Don’t forget we’ve talked about how the unconscious mind can protect us.” 

    “ I understand, she grew inside too in order to help me   .   .   .  of course.”    

    Dr. Sangler knew then that the mind had gone topsy-turvy but Justine had simply made room for another companion, this time an adult offering great advice, “You’re crazy to listen to him, Stephen uses him to manipulate you.”  There were no more counseling sessions, prescriptions filled or secrets shared. 

    Three years passed quickly with separate beds, bank accounts, and lives leading to rare encounters and one final skirmish in which the long suffered apprentice was rewarded by the court-ordered breakup of Stephen's company; Justine received an anticipated property, she was the sole owner of Malone Casting.  The woman who began a marriage full of promise ended the battle with resolve concluding that it didn’t really matter. She had sole custody of the child.  She kept the house in Pacific Palisades while Stephen proposed second chances in phone messages that signaled another failed conquest.  

II 

    During the year’s first week, a mere seven weeks ago, a handsome, twenty-three year old Irish face with the requisite dark eyes and brown hair had descended on Malone Casting.  Probing questions about his theatrical past were dispensed with quick wit.  Michael Morrison had more than a passing interest in being cast for the role of Eugene O'Neill's alter ego, Edmund Tyrone.  Nervous energy was channeled into a credible younger Tyrone son.  

    Three days later the distant voice of Edmund Tyrone shimmered in the footlights at the reading, and Justine consumed each word as nourishment.  There were very authentic coughing spells and his profile displayed sunken cheeks as required.  Wanting him made perfect sense, they were meant for each other.  She was an avid reader just like him. Hadn’t Stephen ridiculed her romantic paperbacks as a mindless retreat from reality?  The writers that Edmund sought had created conflict for him, but he hadn’t been led astray anymore than she had.  Justine read the French poets too, maybe not Baudelaire, but she had frequented Paris’s museums, art galleries, and libraries. Edmund had traveled the world—that changes anybody—and had similar insights. Both shared a spiritual side, his solitary walks by the sea proved that.  Only a soul mate would know water harbored supernatural powers. Edmund had sensed he might disappear in the ocean in almost the same way consciousness appeared lost in liquor. 

    If any final proof were needed, the very week before meeting Michael when reading the play an epiphany had occurred. The printed word of a playwright gave clarity and purpose to her recurrent dream.  Edmund had a brother named Eugene—he must be the cherub who had begun dancing above her bed when fitful sleep played tricks on the suffering newlywed—who had died as an infant.  In that theater the missing pieces had finally come together.   

    When Michael finished he slowly disappeared into the wings as if the clapping was soundless, then he advanced cautiously from behind the curtain wearing an almost visible smile.  From the front row Justine gathered the applause as if it was meant for her and was drawn to her feet by inexplicable joy.  The applause rose to a thunderous wave in her ears.  It washed over her causing hair to stand on end and goose pimples to pop up.  Long Day's Journey into Night was due to open in three months and Michael became the beneficiary of unforeseeable sexual interest.  

    Nobody had ever auditioned in Justine's bed, but at dinner she sensed Michael had expected an invitation and found that appealing in a man chasing young women.  There were rough edges and like Edmund Tyrone there was a dreamer eager to squander money.  She perceived an uncouth, ill-mannered juvenile lurking under the surface—bravado masked vulnerability, liquor an unknown fear—but his grin could thaw granite.  Glaring dissimilarities: financial station, maturity, and annoying flirtatious behavior were overlooked.  More than lust kept them in sheets, she knew destiny was firmly in control.

    The third phone message she had left when electric service returned to Amalfi Drive that Saturday in February breached the limits imposed on self-respect.  It ended in muffled sobs and a plea for a return call at 7 P.M. her time. Longing was intensified by the certainty that although she had loathed doing so, making love with Michael that last night had been inescapable.

    During the weeks that followed Eugene lost his reassuring smile.  At first there was only a mere suggestion of disinterest in her questioning Michael’s love, but later there were few answers given. Brief encounters were uncomfortable. Uncharacteristic silence—Eugene appeared aloof with a detached stare—replaced laughter, but those were silly dreams, tonight’s journey above the city was real and they had been  inseparable.

    She pulled the phone’s cord from the wall in a flood of hot tears and laid the last log to rest in the bedroom fireplace. Alone again in that vast, empty house Justine watched Last Tango in Paris and downing two sleeping pills with the newly discovered Chateauneuf du Pape. Through a smudged wineglass Michael Morrison unpolished, rough-hewn, immature, and a surprisingly astute gifter of fine wine had became Marlon’s understudy.

 III

    In Manhattan a phone was a necessity and Michael had a ready answer for the missing cell phone he couldn't afford, "My mobile's been banjaxed since I dropped it in the toilet." A car to a New Yorker is a troublesome luxury so earlier he had taken the subway into the Bronx to Monte Fiore Hospital. His coughs produced scowls but he had moved ahead in the line of patients taking nips from the ever-present NyQuil Cough bottle.  After forty minutes he stood before a brown face framed by corn-rowed hair to retrieve his biopsy report.  He folded and pocketed the unread report.

    Winter was more enjoyable underground; it was crowded with the shades and accents that New Yorkers relish.  Peruvians from Queens wore ancient woolen caps designed by Incan masters that Macy's modern mavens couldn’t improve. Puerto Ricans bounced to rhythm pouring from headsets and one, a statuesque teen, danced slowly past Michael. Her pink leather coat and matching fur-lined boots momentarily drew his eyes from the folded biopsy report to her smiling mother. She was an exact duplicate of the teen-queen with twenty years added. Her shopping bag proclaimed a boutique patron, imported handbag and full-length leather boots said upper-class, but the red tint in her hair confirmed this masquerading senorita had snared a rich Italian.

    He opened the report.  The news required no white gown or spiritual support.   Tumors spread, everyone knew that.  He crumbled his death sentence tossing it at the third rail. Fingers tore at his neck breaking the necklace’s clasp. Serpentine gold lay across Michael’s boot forcing the girl’s mother back. Glazed eyes in a face driven from composure to rage brought hushed silence. He retrieved the necklace and stood staring at the girl's mother.  A faint rumble grew louder behind shimmering rails in the coming light. Brakes squealed as blue light sliced a surging tide of foul-smelling air.

    Michael's eyes clouded over as they fell to a his palm. A figure looked back from a small cross that had piercing skin as if to confirm the futility of denial—it was Michael’s turn.  His life was ending cell by dying cell—there would be no sacrifice to save souls or a resurrection—on a crowded platform ninety feet below scurrying feet and blaring horns.    He stumbled through opening doors squeezing the cross tightly.  Watching steel pillars pass in smudged glass he saw strangers looking at him.  Rib-rattling coughs turned heads and two teenagers seated nearby bolted in disgust.  The girl brought the back of her hand to her face quickly and looked away.

    “Nice gross-out, Dude .   .  .  you got balls bringin’ disease shit in here.”

    Running the back of his hand over his chin, Michael was shocked finding blood.

    Afterwards he had stepped from a steaming shower to a carpet of  scattered books.  He fished a marijuana roach from an ashtray and found sleep on a cot in the one-room flat.  He awoke to the screeching of cats in the alley, which brought a welcomed smile.

    “I agree, tis’ best I leave another me,” he sighed.   

    He held the glass-ribbed container under the faucet waiting for hot water and observed the pile of crumpled credit card receipts with a wary eye.  Opening the top drawer of a blistered dressed he patted beneath socks in the rear right corner.  The fifty-dollar bill would have to do.  Coaxing the last few drops of cologne to his fingertips, he inhaled and fought a cough.  NyQuil left a green tongue and a smile.

    Transit above ground was dreamlike. Heavy clouds were transforming the city. Freezing rain was falling lazily, layer upon layer, to form a glassy sheet.  Glittering pavement became the stage onto which Broadway's marquees broke into liberating dance. Skating on leather soles past immobilized taxicabs made him feel young again. Alfred Dunhill cologne would do its magic making him irresistible to the ladies. Surrounded by an iced-city of reflected light he sensed a guardian had returned

    “I can’t be saved, tis’ too late,” he said brushing off his right shoulder.  

    He ducked into the Pen & Quill around 8 P.M. It was dark and filled with carved wood and beveled-mirrors bouncing the excited voices of a working theatrical company. Phoenix Park near Dublin's Trinity College an ocean away was almost visible through steaming windows. The bar's patrons knew Michael from casting calls.  Trish, the barmaid, whose father owned a pawn shop lived on Michael’s block. The first drink was a welcomed elixir prized Jameson 1780 Old Irish Whiskey. It received Michael's blessing, "Uisce beatha”. There was no doubt Irish Whiskey was the water of life.  

    Michael found companions and squeezed into a crowded booth annoyed by Trish’s telling glances towards a girl seated in a booth in the corner.  Disinterested in the conversation, she had looked up locking eyes with Michael. There was an uncommon allure—devilry in the bewitching face framed in flowing golden-brown hair.  Trish called him to the bar after he had passed the booth.

    “It’s about time, she’s been asking me about you”

     “Then it’s time I tell her the truth.”

     “That’s a set designer with pencils needing your blarney. The name’s  Deirdre.”

    She made room and he was more than close, the two were becoming one.  Their interplay held center stage for Trish and other lonely singles, as the couple moved from the sobriety of eye contact to the intoxication of memorizing faces.

     “That name was meant for you. As a boy I heard about a royal storyteller. Tis’ half truth, half fancy but no matter, you live up to the prophecy.”

    “What prophecy?” 

    “This story teller of the King whose name is lost to my memory was on his way to fatherhood and a Druid, named Cathbad—can’t misplace that one—forewarned that the baby girl would be beautiful with the same colored hair and eyes that I see before me.” 

    “Forewarned, I don’t think I like that.”

    “The message straight from heaven itself said that kings and their faithful lords would go to war over her.”

    “My name should have been Helen, I’d die for that part.” 

    “Truth be told, the best warriors of Ulster were exiled on your account.”

    Soon they were exchanging childhood.  Deirdre rode Money Man, an Irish thoroughbred owned by her father, which had been syndicated and later put down with a broken fetlock at Saratoga.  Michael was watched steaming road-apples drop from a pony he had ridden over the stones of Connemara, his birthplace in the West of Ireland. A month later she would learn the name was derived from the Gaelic, Conmhaicne Mara, meaning descendants of Con Mhac, the sea. He wished he had a place to take her.  She'd follow without a bridle of lies.  He would later tell nurses, "Jay-sus! I’ll tell ya this and tell ya no more, I had never seen a more beautiful creature be it woman or beast."

    His search for another younger sane Justine—had since the biopsy's edict become more than a faint hope—might have been answered.  Suppressing a dreaded cough he left her standing by the booth with a light slap of his palm on her bottom that evoked a consenting smile.

    "Here, I'm off to the jacks, mind me drink."

    He tossed a winking eye at Trish, passed the men's room, and exited through the rear door. Tucking his chin low, he drove into the brisk wind.  The heavy Rolex showed ten minutes to ten.  The unwanted peace offering was reason enough to propel him toward the phone booth on the corner of Broadway and Forty-seventh Street. There would be no apology to Justine just a simple request for clear thinking. He’d find work through New York’s casting agents.  He had left her house dejected with no appetite for intimacy, but at this moment he was dependent on it as never before.

    Sex with Justine had been intense and unnerving. They had stayed in bed for two days with trips from the master bedroom to the Jacuzzi.  He'd told familiar lies to keep sleeping with her reveling in a liquor-fueled bliss.  As Trish said, “A California nut would believe anything, they can’t connect the dots.”   

    Michael frowned at the Rolex’s hands tickling diamonds at ten and twelve and entered the phone both.  The closing door commanded a fan to whirl spewing tiny thin-winged corpses into the cone of diffused light. They fluttered in the eddy of air that brought the odor of stale urine. Michael fixed his eyes on encrusted vomit at his heels. A dial tone hummed while a finger hovered over the zero that would have summoned a collect call.

    Minutes later as Michael’s coughing entered the cramped newsstand a red-dotted apparition wearing a saffron-colored turban and frayed Army jacket took the fifty. He returning a twenty, two fives, and a lotto ticket.

     “A red bindi under the wrapping tonight, ya’ must have a cure.”

    “Oh! A cure no, but it will appease the demon and pacify your spirit.”

    “But it can’t count, I’m short twenty-four.”

      Long fingers dropped a brown cube on the opened hand below.

     “Formulated for a Maharaja with rupees, but offered to a good friend.”

    He found Deirdre with pens, paper, and a satisfied audience, but wasn't allowed to see the drawing.  They sought the solitude of a booth where Deirdre discreetly offered an expertly rolled joint.  She found a home in his leather coat whose aromatic warmth offered security.  The wait for Michael which had seemed like an eternity left her deliciously smug.  Perched on a stool her fingertip traced the outline of his lips into memory, one fattening moment at a time.  He held her face in his hands; hours became minutes.  At closing time Deirdre tucked her penciled sketch into Michael's jacket after he paused at the bar to retrieve a phone number.  Her father was wintering in Jamaica  and Michael was invited to join her near the park.

 IV 

    They concluded separate lives in the crowded subway.  A vague yearning grew into a hunger as Deidre responded to the warm hand gently cradling the breast beneath her sweater. The first kiss melted her legs and thrust her tongue through parting teeth. Warmth was moving in waves under molded jeans drawn to the tapered apex between her legs. The chilling draft cascading down the subway's damp stairs and hurried flight from iced sidewalks to brass doors had no effect on the couple.

    A doorman scratching a stubby pencil over the New York Times crossword puzzle flashed a grin as the pair plunged into the elevator. The doors opened on a penthouse sprawling elegantly between mauve-colored walls.  Four-legged walnut sentinels burdened with Wedgwood rose from white carpet. French Impressionist art swept up to a cathedral ceiling on lighted pedestals displaying Monet, Degas, Bazille and Sisley.  

    Michael left reality outside the library's beveled glass to fantasize about the life with Deirdre that he could never have.  The books drew him in quickly, but she enticed him to the couch with the promise of warming brandy.  Exploratory questions about his income and family were put off.  Giving up, Deirdre snatched the brandy decanter from his hand.

    “Stop drinking. We’ll enjoy a number, then each other.  Don’t waste tonight.”

      He sighed with a boyish grin and remarked, “If My Lady only knew.”

    She left without a word and reappeared with a razor blade to slice thin shavings from the hashish cube. Marijuana was sprinkled from a small plastic bag containing apple wedges onto cigarette paper.

     "What was that 'only knew' all about?"

     “Trifles it was.”

     “Well  .  .  .  I’m waiting?” 

    Deirdre moved past the slowly shaking head, kissed his cheek and snuggled in his arms.  His second hit on the number was long and for the first time in weeks brought perfection to breathing. Later he saw the effortless fluid exchange with an ocean of air that swished powerfully through the shelves toppling books in time with his expanding chest. There was no painful triggered hack to cause flinching. More than once he thought he heard a distant voice grow loud, but the warm breezes drowned it out. Hours later she was holding his hands to her chest.

    “God, you’re still freezing Michael. Follow me.”

    He suddenly realized she was naked and staring over his shoulder saw that the heater’s glow had spread a bronze hue over mahogany shelving and books.  She pushed him past the bedroom and turned the thermostat higher. They entered the paneled exercise room and she dimmed the lights as the two surveyed a mirrored alcove.  Deirdre leaned closer whispering, "Your lady wants to know everything about you.”  

    “Not tonight, where’s that number of yours.”

    “Later, you nearly touched that heater's coils.”

    She was back in his arms as they gazed out the window overlooking Central Park.  Michael looked at adoring eyes taking in the incarnation of an utterly pathetic dream.  He kissed her and his chin trembled slightly saying, "I'm sorry".  

    “For what?”  

    “For waiting so long to truly love, I’m just beginning.”

    Deirdre's lips brushed lightly over Michael's eyebrows on their journey to his ear. Her tongue left the ear drawing a thin line down an accommodating neck toward starched cotton. Her left hand pressed his buttocks as her fingers reached the last button, extracting the shirt from under the grey waistband of opened trousers. Her teeth were again at play, this time tantalizingly pulling the lengthening tie's end.  He opened the sauna slowly as eager hands withdrew his belt and paused; she slid his trousers down slowly. There would be no rush, the ecstasy of his nakedness was finally hers.

    Tiny beads of sweat shone on Michael's shoulders and chest, while his left hand pressed her ever closer. The gentle restrained pressure of a teasing thumb and forefinger controlled her thrusting pelvis.  Feverish toes and fingertips supported rhythmic lunges. Her feet found no refuge on blistering wood. The moist valley between breasts shown in the amber light. His right hand pulled the grinding bundle of energy nearer feeling the first slight quiver of pink skin. He bathed in her trickling sweat that merged with his to splatter below. A wave of pleasure happened for her.  Below a flood of imprisoned tears spilled out knowing this union should have lasted a lifetime.  He reached for the fiery Rolex that revealed four o'clock. Michael's silver cross was Deirdre's.  They slipped pass the dozing doorman to run across a frosted lawn while a silver moon winked through the icy lattice of sheltering branches.

    At the same time, a world away, Justine placed her hands on her stomach fixing her eyes on the picture of once promising newlyweds. She opened the attaché case on the bed looking at the once triumphant divorce decree then the pregnancy report.  The sight of the empty wine bottle brought back the memory of their last night together. Michael had left Malibu later in a taxi returning sullen and remote after their wine-laced quarrel. Edmund was true to form passing a note to an admiring hostess. 

    He had crawled across the wasteland of her bed to invade loneliness by softly touching her shoulder. They spoke no words. She turned her damp head slowly and he caught the faint traces of shampoo. His hand reached to fondle tanned skin in an insincere try at renewed interest. She had spread her legs obediently, and it was soon over.

    Their eyes meet briefly unwilling to stay. Justine felt used and soiled as she had with Stephen.  Michael felt ashamed returning the unwanted cross to his boot. Fluttering curtains invaded gloom carrying the fragrant scent of Night Blooming Jasmine. At daybreak he crossed a soggy lawn to enter a taxi reading Justine's inscription, “Edmund take my everlasting love.”

 V 

    By noon Sunday in the final week of February all firewood in Pacific Palisades was gone even the paper-log variety. Lucky opportunists had left blinking yellow lights to hurdle curbside puddles and enter Brentwood's hidden market in one last desperate search.  The lucky ones would retreat to snug bedrooms, soft music, and rented movies but Interstate 10 entertained an unlikely motorcade. Bright plastic platters clung on ropes enduring the steady downpour in a crawling Diamond Lane. Truck beds held beach towels and unconvincing Chinese snow shovels snatched from storefronts. Polyester snowsuits framed the faces of expectant children at side-windows as heads searched the ridges for a glimpse of crystals leaving a pink batch on mud. 

    Monday morning the weekend's grey sky was evaporating fast and precisely at 11 A.M a brilliant sun poked through as expected.  Still air hung over the glistening surface of the marina.  Behind the protecting breakwater lethargic sailboats nudged sagging lines toward their mirror images down all the basins. The sky turned pristine with white billowing clouds floating in an electric-blue sky over the City of Angels.  Justine's Mercedes eased quietly into the crowded parking lot for her one o’clock appointment.  A white splatter hit the hood with a weighty, dull thud. Her eyes followed the trio of pelicans gliding high overhead toward the Marina.  

    Two weeks earlier Dr. Gill's lab had confirmed her second equally absurd home pregnancy test.  She absentmindedly checked the cell phone once again for Michael's missed message watching several clouds glide together. The likeness had been designed to test her wavering will power.  A second look verified the angel overhead.  

    “Stephen so help me, you won't win this time.”  

    Later Dr. Gill accepted her verdict with a deferential smile on his side of the stirrups.  Marvin Sangler and he were in agreement about Justine's prohibited dream which was now beyond a small clump of cells growing a thin membrane.

    In New York a piece of paper in Michael's coat held the pawnshop’s number. A convulsive deep-seated cough gave way to gasping.  The bloody napkin was dropped as his finger pressed the raised chrome numbers—it was a done deal.  The watch guaranteed that his funeral expenses were paid in full.  Michael began to crumple the paper. He stopped to look at the faint traces of colored lead. Turning it over Deidre’s drawing was revealed. A smiling baby boy with dark eyes and brown hair enveloped in a flowing red robe danced on clouds above a vast blue planet.

    At that precise moment Dr. Gil's uterine evacuator began sucking fluid.  Inside Justine's uterus a rose-colored mass was liquefied.  A red stain dropping down a plastic tube passed the vaginal speculum on its way to join others surfing the pipeline that dumped into the Pacific near the Marina.  

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