[disclaimers in part 1]
Rumi quote translated by Coleman Barks used without permission.
______

"Long ago, if my memory serves me, my life was a banquet where
everyone's heart was generous, and where all wines flowed. One
evening I pulled Beauty down on my knees. I found her embittered, and
I cursed her. ... But recently, on the verge of giving my last croak,
I thought of looking for the key to the ancient banquet where I might
possibly recover my appetite."

~~Rimbaud -- A Season in Hell~~
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THURSDAY, MARCH 9, 2000
LONE GUNMEN HQ
10:13 PM

FROHIKE:

Sari finally left about an hour ago, taking the Cardinal with her. Scully came by to take her back to her very own home, for the first time in days. I bet she'll feel great sleeping in her own bed tonight. But you know, I'm gonna miss that cat.

We still have a lot of work to do, that's for certain.  But I feel mildly victorious in that Barry Guertzen's ass is now rotting away in a DC jail cell, whose accommodations bear no resemblance to even the lowliest Motel 6.  I'm grateful that we were able to help in cleaning up some of the scum that makes this world so disagreeable at times.

In the meantime, it's high time I wrote that thank you note to Ms. Scarlett. I've put it off way too long.  I've been thinking about what I would say, and come up blank every time.  But now, I sit down, and the words just come. Such is their power.  I hope my words have the power to help her understand just how much her kindness was appreciated.

And perhaps the irises won't hurt, either.

LANGLY:

I'm grinding away at some old stuff we've consulted on, in search of the bastard that invaded Sari's computer.  I'm amazed.  The guy needed a pea shooter for the job, but instead blasted at it like he was going for an elephant.  So frickin stupid. There was certainly some skill and talent, but no style there whatsoever.  When I find out who this is, I'm gonna chew his sorry ass out so that he's gonna be humiliated for even being born. His puny packet-monkey butt is gonna swing in the breeze for the whole damn world to see.

The Deb Song chimes as I'm bringing up an old file.  I happily switch screens.  She has a message for me.  Subject line says 'I'm coming.' Like you couldn't take that a lot of ways!  She writes:  'Babe -- as soon as exams are over, I've got my two days off, plus the five days I've saved up by covering for people.  That's an entire week.  Buy lots of condoms.  Love, Deb.'

Words can make you feel like such shit,  but the ones I just read made me feel totally awesome.  More awesome than I've felt in a long time.  They've got so much power.

I'm waiting to take that power to a place beyond words.
 

BYERS:

I think this is the worst headache I've ever had in my life. It's certainly the longest. Even that marathon three day hangover after I had my stomach pumped in my Junior year at college doesn't quite come up to this one. And both Scully and my doctor assure me that it will probably carry on for at least another week. I can't see anything very well either. Frohike held up a finger in front of me today. He assured me there was only one, but I suspect he was lying. I think there were four, but I couldn't be sure because they were all so damn blurry. My face is a mess, and I'm kind of bruised and banged up from smacking into a brick wall and a sidewalk, but other than that, I'm really okay. It's just that damn headache, the dizziness, and the vision problems that have me so out of it. Well, that and the pain medications. Being in constant pain like this takes a lot more out of me than I ever realized it could. But despite all this, I actually feel pretty good for a change.

It isn't that life has suddenly turned around for me -- it hasn't -- it's just that after I talked to Sari about Susanne and Landau and all the related things that have happened to me over the years, I felt like an enormous weight had been physically lifted off my body. I had a sense, when I was at Sari's last Sunday, that talking to her would feel good, but I hesitated from long years of habit, paranoia and shyness. It isn't exactly the sort of thing you discuss with someone you've just met, and who, furthermore, has just hired you to fix their computer. Or, at least, it's never been the sort of thing I'd discuss. I told her things that I've never even said to Mel. And she sat there with me and actually listened to everything I said. She wasn't judging me, like Mel sometimes does. I know he never trusted Susanne, and he thought I was a fool for loving her. And unlike Ringo, Sari won't give me shit about it. She's not the type. She's hassled me about other things, certainly, but not about that.

In ways, I think we're a lot alike in our unfortunate taste in partners. She would never tease me about Susanne for the same reasons I would never tease her about Barry. It's too close, too painful, and too personal. And we respect each other's feelings about the subject. No, my life hasn't turned around, but it has changed. I don't understand all of it. Maybe I never will. But I've found the sky again, and the stars are starting to show themselves. Real stars this time, things and people in my life that are valuable, unlike before, when all my stars bore Susanne's name. I'm fairly certain there's a sun and a moon out there too, waiting for their moments to rise.

I don't think I've felt quite this comfortable inside my own skin since that day in Baltimore, when my universe collapsed beneath me and I was drawn into the life I now live. I'll never again be the person I was then. I was very young, naive, and terribly, almost fatally innocent. But I'm not quite the man I was last week, either. I no longer feel like I'm about to implode from emptiness, like some sucking black hole of misery. I miss Susanne, and yes, Sari's right, I still love her, but I don't have that aching need for her anymore. That Susanne-shaped hole in my life has mysteriously transformed, become a warm, bright space inside filled with my friends, both old and new. There may not be many, but they're close and trustworthy. And Sari keeps threatening to introduce me to some of her friends, when I'm actually able to see them instead of blurry animated lumps. I met her sister Devi briefly when I was at the hospital. She seems like an interesting person. I doubt that Sari has boring friends.

We talked for a while before Sari left this evening. When I mentioned that on Sunday I'd been thinking her living room would be a great place for Turkish coffee and baba ganouj, she laughed and said that it had, in fact been served there before, and if I'd like, she could easily arrange for it to happen again, with the addition of my presence. She added that she knew some folks who were really into Arabic music and Sufi poetry, and that it was about time she brought them together again for an evening of music, Middle Eastern food, and the recitation of Rumi and Hafiz.

"Become the sky," she'd quoted.  "Take an axe to the prison wall./ Escape./ Walk out like someone suddenly born into color./ Do it now."

I think I'll take that advice.

-fin-