erika, that was gorgeous. I love the way you write.

Thanks for the praise, Joe and Deb!

Thank you, Amy Liz.

It's not the pain, it's the shame.

Pain alone is...not okay, but bearable. Pain in public is weakness, shame, incapability witnessed. They may not be looking, but they know, and no one should ever know.

She sucks in air again, clutching her knees to her chest, despite the darting pains. Shame makes crying, crying makes shame.

"In for a penny, in for a pound," says the hopeless and cruel part of her brain.

No. Her eyes are aflame and she has two choices - she can douse it with tears, or she can damp it with calm.

So she breathes again.

Anne, I thought of that Pratchett bit too.

This is basically unedited, unworkshopped, and scribbled while I watched the sunset this evening.

Breath

And then the sun slips down
below the cloak of grey the sky
has worn this day.

There's wonder in this gilded world
of promise, and the hope
gone missing, recent days.

This golden city, set in shining hills,
is mere illusion; in a single
exhalation the sun is gone

the world consigned to dullness
and the grey of everyday, dusk
and quickly, dark.

We huddle close to ground
for meagre warmth, the memory
of sun, and hope for dawn.

I like that one.

This golden city, set in shining hills,

is mere illusion; in a single

exhalation the sun is gone

the world consigned to dullness

and the grey of everyday, dusk

and quickly, dark.

Especially that bit. I think I'ma show that one to my lurvly wife.

I was watching "NCIS" last night--I think that's its name, the one with the goth-girl computer whiz--and thinking about something I read in "Telling Lie for Fun and Profit" by Lawrence Block. He says he gets lots of ideas by watching TV and trying to guess the plot. On the show, they were hunting some Al Qaeda terrorists, and one of the suspects was a former Navy man who was injured out of the service, and one of the strikes against him was that he then converted to Islam. I winced at that and thought "Being Muslim doesn't make you a terrorist, come on, people." The FBI knew where he was but wouldn't turn him over to the NCIS chief, a stereotypically arrogant, "the rules don't apply to me so long as I get the job done" type. The FBI agent in charge, an Hispanic woman in this case, was shown, as usual for the FBI, as uncooperative, contemptuous of other departments, and caring more about their operation that little people's lives.

So I'm eating dinner and watching, and I think "Maybe the FBI won't give up the suspect because he's actually a deep cover agent working to infiltrate the Al Qaeda cell, and if they turn him over for this they'll blow his cover." I had the big "reveal" scene all plotted out and everything. But, no. The NCIS chief waves his dick around and gets the suspect, who really is a terrorist. The twist is that the overly-concerned neighbor lady was having an affair with the female Navy commander's husband and was using the threats to cover an attempt to kill the commander. I knew the neighbor lady was involved somewhere the moment she appeared on the screen, but I was hoping she'd turn out to be the real terrorist.

Sigh. At least the goth-chick is fun. She tries to explain things to the chief, who is tech-clueless, and has to go from "I had to decrypt the jpegs we were sent, but I think I figured out the key" to "computer makes pretty pictures now."

Anyway, I had a point with that. I wonder if the plot I was anticipating would be considered too complicated for audiences. Well, not to a Buffy audience, I wouldn't think. The injured sailor was black, too, and the neighbor lady was a perky blond mom. Cliche on cliche.

And, Connie sums up why I watch no network TV at all these days. As a writer, it makes me want to hit them all very very very hard.

Bev, have I mentioned that I purely loved that poem?

If you do it, can I film it? That would be a reality series and a half, Deb. I only have one new network show that I watch now, come to think of it.