SATURDAY SESSIONS: Final episode!

McKiernan has already arranged for me to jump the queue so I can get the scan done. I won't be needing any contrast dye this time, he says, but I should drink as much water as I can before I'm called.

I undress in a cubicle and when I emerge wearing a robe, the radiologist asks me if I have any metal implants such as a pacemaker or whatever and maybe because I haven't eaten for a while or with all the mixed emotions of the afternoon and all those blank white walls all around me, I'm feeling, I'm feeling a bit light-headed and an instantaneous, intuitive flash in my mind tells me that I've already died, I actually died on Lucy's sofa that time and the scene is not at all as warm and welcoming as the NDE I had earlier today but more like a vast, anonymous, empty, echoing airport where you're given a white robe to wear as a shroud for your one-way flight to nowhere.

I lie on the table and slide back and forth in the large doughnut machine as the X-ray tubes rotate around me, buzzing and clicking away.

I get dressed, walk upstairs and wait for the results. McKiernan would text me personally when he was ready. I'm still in a bit of a daze, sitting there, wondering about Cathy. I should have died on Lucy's sofa. It would have been easier for everybody, including me. I should have been truthful. Now she'll never trust me again. Ever. Will it drive a wedge between us? Has it already done so? Maybe it's all for the best. The Universe has decided it would be easier for us both to go our own ways in the circumstances. Why should Cathy have to suffer too? Why should she have to see me wither away and die?  This was the best option of all. Ha, now I don't care anymore. Let the axe fall where it may. But what if McKiernan tries to persuade me? Maybe it's operable after all. Pancreatic cancer? I don't think so. What of it? I don't care anymore. Of course, Cathy would certainly try to twist my arm. And then? Then I'd refuse and she'd walk out on me for good. Good. The sooner she can get on with her life the better. And Maria? Jason? What about them? Australia!  I haven't got the price of a one-way ticket on my account, much less return. Maybe I wouldn't need to return. Does it matter where I die?  Should I try to reach them? Tell them I'm dying?  Who's that going to help? Nobody. Least of all, them. Yes, I know what I'll do. I'll write them a letter. A long letter. To be posted only after my ashes are scattered. Yeah, but who'll scatter them?  Cathy? Jason?  If he ever comes home. Where will I leave them for him? I'm sure the undertaker will know. I'm sure they've seen this kind of thing before. Yeah, I'll negotiate a small fee to leave the ashes there at the undertaker's for safekeeping until Jason and Maria get home to scatter them in the sea. OK. Good. That's settled. Do I have enough money for the funeral? Maybe I should take out a personal loan from the bank. Long-term. Ha-ha! That would be a good one. Terms and conditions apply.
Text!  It's McKiernan!  I take a deep breath and stand. My executioner awaits in his office. I am beyond caring now. 

There's the office door. Open it. No, knock first. Knock.

Wait! Stop! The Lemurians! Have I learned nothing? What did Xendo say?  TV.  Yes!  TV!  Transformational Vibration! Like switching the TV channel, you shift into the new parallel reality based on your transformational vibration of that moment. You choose your future. That's how you create your own reality! That's how you choose it! Joy! Not fear! Always choose joy and joy will choose you! That's what Solari said. Well, I'm choosing joy! For Jason, Maria, Cathy and for me. That's what I'm doing right now. If I can only just stop crying. I haven't even got a bloody tissue. I can't go into the office like this. Maybe find a toilet somewhere. No. Forget that. You're here now. Go for it. Go. Deep breath.  Remember, no matter what he says, you will determine the outcome. You will create your own reality! Nothing matters any more in any case! Nothing matters. Not a thing.  Remember what Zol said: Shift to the reality you want, or you will keep getting the reality you don't want. 

I open the door to McKiernan's office. Cathy is there!  She runs to embrace me, laughing through her tears. McKiernan is standing at his desk grinning from ear to ear and shaking his head in disbelief.

'It's a miracle, Jordan!' she cries, 'A miracle!'

'The scan showed no trace of the tumour,' concurs McKiernan.  'But I might just ask you to come back sometime later for a virtual endoscopy. Just a formality.  It's non-invasive. It will give us a 3-D CT image of your insides just to be sure, but to all intents and purposes, you are now officially cancer-free!'

'It's a miracle, Doctor!' exclaimed Cathy. 'A miracle!'

The doctor bit his lip, nodding reluctantly.

'Well, Doctor,' I said, half-laughing, half-crying, trying to catch my breath to speak, 'as Einstein put it, either you believe everything in life is a miracle, or you believe nothing in life is a miracle!'

I shook his hand.

'Dr McKiernan, you're a gentleman and a scholar. I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for being both.'

'A doctor is only as good as his patient, Jordan. Wasn't it Hippocrates who said that? You did all the work. The patient always does. We are just the facilitators.'

'Could I ask you one last question, Doctor? '

'Of course.'

'Do doctors always have to give their patients a prognosis?'

'It's their moral and clinical duty to the patient, Jordan. A prognosis is given, based on all the empirical evidence available to them. We have a duty to tell the patient what we know. '

'I understand that. But do you not also have a duty to tell your patient what you don't know? '

'I'm sorry. I don't understand what you mean.'

'Your moral and clinical duty is confined to what you know, isn't it?'

'Yes. I suppose so.'

'But what about what you don't know?'

'You're referring to spontaneous remissions. Like your own now, I presume?'

'Could that moral and clinical duty not include offering to pass the ball? When your empirical evidence reveals to you that the patient's days are numbered? After all, the empirical evidence doesn't include what you don't know, does it?'

He sighed.

'You said it yourself just now. You are only the facilitator.  It's the patient who does the healing. Why do some patients heal and others don't? '

'Everybody's biology is different, Jordan. Some may have other underlying conditions or a compromised immune system.  To answer your question simply, some people are stronger than others. '

'The same can be said of their belief. Belief becomes biology, isn't that also true?  Why do some people respond to treatment and others don't?'

'You believe it's all placebo, don't you?'

'Placebo, nocebo. Yes I do.'

'Ah yes, nocebo. We in the medical profession are very much aware of the nocebo effect, I assure you.  But nevertheless, it's our responsibility to ensure that our patients are prepared for the worst. To stretch your metaphor a little, most of the patients would drop the ball if we passed it to them. They wouldn't know what to do with it. And then we're back to the problem of belief. We are scientists, Jordan, not mystics. If all the empirical evidence suggests that the patient has a terminal illness, that evidence determines our prognosis. How can we expect the patient to believe in the possibility of recovery if we don't believe in it ourselves?'

'The patient might cope if he were taught how to cope, if he were encouraged to cope with his illness from the outset, rather than being a passive receiver. He wouldn't drop the ball if he knew how to play.'

'As I say, Jordan, most patients prefer to be spectators, passive receivers of treatment, to use your own expression. They don't want to have to run with the ball. They'd prefer to be spectators rather than assume responsibility for their own lives.'

'But isn't it about the energy field, Doctor?  I suppose, all I'm trying to say - in my excitement, ha-ha! -  is that if doctors knew about the energy field and informed their patients about it, people would become more self-empowered. You don't have to be a mystic to understand the energy field. Isn't that where all chronic illnesses begin? And end?'

'The energy-field?  Ah. Simple as that, hm?'

'Maybe. And then there's the energy. Where do we get energy from? Food, for example.  We take energy from the earth in the form of food. You quoted Hippocrates earlier; was it not he who said, let food be thy medicine, medicine thy food? The father of medicine himself!  Why, then, for example, is the food so toxic in this and every other hospital? Why aren't nutritious hospital diets customised to meet the patient's medical needs? Why do doctors, who take the Hippocratic Oath, not demand health-warnings on junk-food?  Why don't they recommend banning herbicides and pesticides? Why don't they speak out against industrial farming using antibiotics and hormones to fatten cattle?  Did you know that there are at least ten thousand toxic chemicals in circulation in our food industry?... Oh!... I'm... sorry, Doctor!... I'm so sorry!...I'm losing the run of myself... It's been such a roller-coaster of a day!... '

'I'll take you home, love,' said Cathy, squeezing my hand.  'You need to rest. And then we need to celebrate!'

'Yes. By all means, you must rest, Jordan. And, of course, celebrate! And I wish you two all the happiness you deserve! But before you go, Jordan, and to answer your question, I hear what you're saying.  Please understand, however, that we're doctors. Doctors. There is always the danger that we might be offering the patient false hope without any evidence whatsoever, and that just make matters worse for everybody.'

'Ah, evidence. But surely it's only false hope to those who don't believe in miracles? Einstein was a scientist; as a scientist, he believed in evidence. But he also believed that everything in life was a miracle. Didn't he?'

I put my arms out and hugged him. It took him by surprise. Then Cathy joined in. If anybody had walked into the consultation room at that moment, they'd have seen a doctor, a nurse and a patient, all locked in a hug like penguins. 

'I want to thank you, Dr McKiernan, for having the wisdom to allow me not to believe your prognosis. '

'How could you tell?'

'What, that you and I are so alike?'    

                                                                          *

The following day I get on the bus to Lucy's and realise that a spontaneous way to feel the joy of being and get my endorphins flowing is simply to imagine that six months from now I'd be dead if I'd chosen to believe McKiernan's prognosis.  I'll actually be around for a while yet to experience all those little moments of life that play out before me, moment by moment. What a joy!  This is what Zol was saying. We can choose to feel great, even if we're up to our necks in shit. Or words to that effect. 

I look at the ears of the passengers in front of me and remember having read somewhere that everybody's ears are unique, every ear that has ever existed and ever will exist, is unique. In fact, everything, everything that has ever existed is unique.  And what a miracle it is that everything is changing, shifting, on the move, all the time, everything is so intricate, so dynamic, so unique!

Lucy listens enraptured as I tell her the whole story about the cancer. 

She sees immediately that I'd been carrying this burden of mine throughout many lifetimes since the days of Atlantis. It would have caused me to suffer and die without getting old again, in countless manifestations of my existence. 

'But why do we do that, Lucy? Why do we continue to punish ourselves for unresolved issues of so long ago?'

'Punish is the wrong word, Jordan. We are the sole authorities of our lives. When we abdicate responsibility, there are always consequences. Stepping out of line is a better phrase to use here.'  

'Or out of alignment, as the Lemurians put it.'

'Out of alignment with ourselves, our true nature, who we really are. It would seem that between lives, part of our mission is to choose to return again and again to encounter a similar pattern of behaviour at some point in our lives. Each lifetime, we are challenged to overcome the challenge, to get it right, to step back into alignment. But of course, most of us forget the mission. Or I should say, we forget to discover what the mission is.' 

'To redress the balance?'

'Well, yes. Not forgetting to enjoy the thrill of experience. If you can! That's what I believe anyway.'

'That's what they were saying in Lemuria. To metabolise experience from every possible perspective as we enter the illusion of duality, experiencing, interfacing with the Universe itself, all the universes, our very own co-creation, in all their magnificence.'

'That's beautiful, Jordan. How well you remember it!  Isn't it so sad that most of us get caught up in the matrix, the 3D physical world of struggle, from lifetime to lifetime to lifetime. We just don't give ourselves a chance to get back into alignment.'

'And so we get sick.'

'When we die from a terminal disease like your cancer, we're throwing in the towel, we're saying to ourselves, no, we're not going to make it. Let's just pack up and go. The body gets tired of trying to fix things on its own. It won't get out of the driving seat and let the totality take over and sort things out. You carried that burden of cognitive dissonance, anger, resentment and betrayal of your true self again and again and again throughout the millennia!  How mad is that?'

'We should all live to be a thousand, like the Lemurians! I know it takes no time to know who we really are, but for guys like me it might take a millennium, especially if I don't have a crisis like this to shock me into it! Yesterday, I had only six months to live. The odds are today that I might have six years to live, sixteen even, maybe even sixty, ha-ha!  Even half of that would be amazing! You know something, Lucy? I feel so great now about life that I really don't mind what happens anymore!'

'Ha-ha! That's exactly what Krishnamurti said!  In one of his talks, he told the audience he'd reveal his secret. Of course, everybody was all agog at the edge of their seats, waiting for this precious piece of wisdom, some of them having followed him for thirty years or more. And you know what he said?  My secret, he told them, is that I don't mind what happens!'

'I love it! The Lemurians were right. We're already in Paradise. It's just that we don't know it! And it's true, Lucy, it's true! I don't mind! Really! I don't mind what happens!'                                                                         

As Bugs Bunny used to say, "That's all, folks!"

Take care of yourself! Or as we say these days, Be kind to yourself!

"The Blossoms of the Apricot" is dedicated to my grandson, Jordan, who will be THREE on Monday.  May the fourth be with him!

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The obstacle is (in) the way.

SATURDAY SESSIONS #44 (Final episode next week!)

What's happening? Why am I up here, looking down? No, no!  It can't be! It couldn't be!

It's an ICU. Doctors, nurses, all over the place. Look, there's Croescia and Jarok looking in through the glass door. They're crying. What happened to me? Must have been my heart. Was it the heart? Yes, I see them now, the pads, there's the EKG, the IV-line, defibrillator, ventilator. Heart. 

Please bring me back. Please, please! 

He's shaking his head. The nurse is talking to Croescia. I understand him. I feel his frustration. I feel what the nurse feels. No! If only I could reach them now, Croescia, Jarok, just for a minute, talk to them, whisper in their ear, tell them I'm fine, happy, fit, light as a feather, never felt better in my life! If only I could hug Jarok, kiss the tears from Croescia's cheeks! Why am I not unhappy? Croescia! Jarok! Look up! Look up! What is wrong with me? Why am I so full of joy? But of course! Everything is so familiar here!  I've been here before! I've retUrned! That's why! I'm home! Thank you, Solari! Thank you, Xendo! Thank you, Zol!  Croescia and Jarok, they'll be fine. They'll be fine. It will take a bit of time but time marches on, as they say, and they'll be fine. I know it in my heart. My heart, ha-ha! But it feels like that, it feels so much like that now. The joy. It's our true nature. That's what they said in Lemuria! That's what they told me! Wait, what's that music? What are those sounds? They're coming from me, I feel so light, my light body, body of light, will I ever see, ever touch again? Now I remember! It was one of the things I looked forward to before I arrived here on Earth, the senses, touch in particular, the rarity, the preciousness of touch,  the petals of a rose, a fistful of pebbles, the silky thighs and breasts of Croescia, even though we never touch at all, ha-ha-ha! as I tried to tell my friends at the hotel!  Who are these shimmering, kaleidoscopic beings around me, blending through me, the music, they are the music, we are the music, blending, sifting through one another. Look! There! It's my life, all before me, like a Lemurian hologram!  Xalak Zolthin?  But I was only seven! He was six! I kicked him in the shin and he cried. I am Xalak. I am hurt. I am everybody, everybody I hurt. Older now, every moment, every thought is there, my parents, siblings, Croescia, Jarok, I absorb it all in an instant. But what is that? In the distance? 
What is  that shimmering, shining light?                    

      

                                                               

                                                                ********

What's happening? Why am I up here, looking down? Who is that on the sofa? No, no, it can't be! It couldn't be! 

What are those sounds? They're coming from me, I feel so light, light as a feather, my light body, body of light...Who are these shimmering, kaleidoscopic beings around me, blending through me, they are the music, we are the music, as we blend together, sift through one another. Everything seems so familiar here! But of course it is! I've been here before! I've retUrned!...

Look! It's my life, all before me, highlights, like a hologram, every detail, I can grasp it all in an instant! Ah, all the selfish little things I did in life! Ah, my lonely childhood, my miserable life...There's Maria!...There's Jason!...I was asleep, sleepwalking, I could have been there for them, I could have....

Look! The joyful moments now...Ha-ha! I'd forgotten I'd ever had any joyful moments as a child....now the early years with Maria, with Jason!  Ha! There's Cathy, at last! Look at that! Wow. I'd forgotten all about that, those people, all of them, I'd forgotten all about all of them!  Look! Look! What's that? In the distance?  That shimmering, shining light...Listen!  It's the song! The song!  May the pure light within you...guide you on your way...

'Lucy!' I cry, gurgling, gasping for breath, as I get to my feet from the sofa.

'Oh my God, I thought I'd lost you! There's an ambulance on the way!'

'What? Why?'

'You had no pulse, Jordan! I gave you CPR! What happened?'

'Call off the ambulance, Lucy, please! Tell them I'm fine.'

'No way! Is there anyone I can call?'

'Family? No. My partner, maybe. But I don't want her to know about this.'

'Then I'll go with you. To the hospital. It could happen again, you know. You never told me you had a weak heart.'

'But I don't. What about our recording?  Jordan died in Atlantis! He was the one with the weak heart! We must record before I forget!'

'Phew!...That's...amazing!  First things first. If they decide to keep you there for a while and if they allow it, we can do the recording in the hospital together. Deal?'

They give me the all clear at the hospital and as there was a bed free, they suggested I spend a couple of hours there for observation. Lucy was allowed to stay with me. She drew the curtains for some privacy, wondering why they couldn't provide wireless earphones for the patients instead of imposing that incessant TV noise on everyone in the ward.

'This is St. James's Hospital, isn't it?  Ha-ha. Just my luck.'

'Why? Is there anything wrong?'

'No, no. Not at all! Let's do the recording. OK?'

On finishing the recording behind the closed curtains, we hear the clatter of plates and smell the fried chicken. 

'Poor chickens,' she remarks. 'A sixty-day lifespan of hell, hormones and antibiotics to end up in a sick patient's stomach. As long as there are slaughterhouses, there will be battlefields. Tolstoy said that. I wonder if more people have died in war than in peace since he died?'

She's brought a gift for me, wrapped and tied with a red ribbon.

'I'll put it into your jacket pocket,' she says, 'in case you forget it.'

'It's the CD, isn't it? Thank you so much, Lucy! You and that soundtrack have led me to the most important turning point in my life. And I mean turning point, because my life has already changed, thanks to you!'

I tell her about the NDE, how exhilarating it felt to be up there looking down. I felt pure joy, I tell her, so much so that I really didn't want to return. In fact I hated being dragged back into my body. Coming back was like a birth, a painful, unwelcome birth. I tell her about Jordan's death, or retUrn, I should say, in Atlantis, and how similar it was to my own NDE.

'Isn't it amazing, Lucy? My highlight reel was for this lifetime. So if, according to the Lemurian definition of time, we live a potentially infinite number of lives each life, a film-like review will take place for each of those lives. You know, somehow I had the feeling while I was up there in the ceiling, that it was possible to see every single one of those highlights all at the same time! Maybe we do! How mad is that, eh?'

'You may be the first person in history, Jordan, to have experienced two NDEs at the same time!'

'No, actually,' I grin, 'only one. Jordan Karpathian didn't come back!'

'Oh yes he did,' says Lucy. 'For the umpteenth time. He's right here in front of me!'

'Karpathian? I've disowned him, Lucy! He's a bloody coward. He betrayed me.'

Lucy laughs.

'You know, Lucy, it struck me on the way into the hospital today that my interaction with those beings of light was just another way of relating to the other beings here on Earth. What I mean to say is, you and I are also beings of light, and if we could only tap into our subtle energy bodies, we'd hear some of that blended music when we interact with one another. Does that sound crazy?'

'Not to me, it doesn't!  I've been studying the energy body for twenty years. The ancients called us children of light. It's only in the twentieth century that this knowledge has been rediscovered by the physicists. They describe us as frozen light.'

'The Lemurians told me that all those parallel universes, or parallel realities, are right here, now, here and now. I'm sure the afterlife is also right here and now, you now, that we can tap into it at will by a mere shift in consciousness.'

'In other words, we don't have to die to get there! I've read about this. People from different cultures all over the world have been able to do this. Australian Dreamtime, for example. Ever heard of it? That, if you ask me, is an experience of the afterlife.'

'I actually felt more alive than I've ever been. Maybe it should be called an NLE, a Near Life Experience, instead! It's what they were telling me all the time, the Lemurians. The implicate order is real, the explicate order is unreal! But the blending of light, of sound vibrations, of music, this merging, Lucy, this, how will I put it, this undivided unity of consciousness was pure love, pure joy!'

For a moment I am tempted to tell her about my problem, the cancer, my prognosis, but no, I decide against it. Why should I burden her with all that? Or?

'Lucy.'

'Yes?' 

No. I baulk again at the fence. For some inexplicable reason, I'm not going to tell her. Maybe it's a superstition which I'm not even consciously aware of. Maybe I'm afraid she'll tell me what I don't want to know, that this kind of therapy is only for chronic pain or phobias or traumas or whatever. Not for me. Not for cancer patients.

We hug and I thank her for everything and tell her I'll be over to see her tomorrow and she leaves. 

I'm thinking maybe I should see Cathy but I don't know what ward she's on so I leave the bed and start wandering about the hospital and who do I bump into but the oncologist himself, Dr McKiernan.

Well not quite bump into; I just see him with his clipboard at the end of the corridor. He's probably the last person I wanted to see here, but maybe I should be biting the bullet. It feels a bit like checking my account on internet banking, or not checking it, I should say, for fear of what I'll see, and in the meantime, just hoping for the best every time I use my card.  I have to admit, though, McKiernan is one of nature's gentlemen.  I suppose he should be retired by now, but I think he's very attached to his patients. There's something poignant, almost tragic about his expression, as if he were apologising for being what he is, an oncologist.  Or even for being alive, while every one of his patients is dying all around him. He'd sit on the edge of the desk, never behind it, or he'd sit on a chair or on a stool right beside me, showing real, genuine compassion for my plight.  Now, even more so, I guess, as I've opted out of the treatment. 

'Jordan!' he says, with a big smile. 'How nice to see you again! But if I remember correctly, your scan is not due for another few weeks. Is everything OK? '

I ask him if there was any way at all he could fit me in for a scan this afternoon. Taken aback, he wants to know why. I tell him, awkwardly, that it has to do with reassurance. That's all. I need reassurance that things are as bad as he tells me they are. He's trying to read between the lines and probably figures I'm sitting on the fence about the treatment. He reflects for a few moments and says he'll do his best to squeeze me in. Unless there's a cancellation, he thinks, there's no guarantee I can get it done today. If I could wait around for a while, he'll text me to let me know.

Eventually, I find Cathy who is surprised and delighted to see me. She has all of ten minutes for me in the canteen over a cup of coffee. As we sip our coffee, she asks me if there's anything wrong.  I assure her everything is fine. I just wanted to see her, just for a few minutes, just to be with her. In fact, maybe we could go home together after her work.  I'd just chill out here, read a bit, go for a walk around the grounds. 

'Are you sure you're OK, love?'  she asks, with a concerned smile, as she gets up to leave.

'Yeah, sure! Why do you ask?'

'Well, I don't know. You seem so... '

'So...?'  I repeat, teasingly. 

'So, I don't know, clingy? Ha-ha! Yes. Clingy! Are you sure you're OK?'

She kisses me and holds my face between her hands, gazing into my eyes.

'Yeah, maybe I'm a little clingy today. I just love the attention, Nurse Cathy!'

'If you ask me, I think it's this regression business that's affecting you. That's what I believe. But if it is, keep it up, will you? I love it!' she laughs, blowing me a kiss as she leaves the canteen.

I go downstairs to the waiting area and find a free seat. How many of these people around me here are on death row?  Does it show in your face if you're on death row? That feeling of acceptance. Of what is, what was, what must be. Of betrayal.  Betrayed by life itself and all its false promises.  What's going on in their minds? Unfinished business? Ah yes, it's always unfinished business of one kind or another, isn't it?  Death, the predator, springs without passion from the tall grass. We, the prey, succumb. 

After about an hour or so of contemplation, daydreaming, checking an e-mail or two on my phone, hoping for that text from McKiernan before the battery runs down, I get up to stretch my legs and who should appear with a clipboard in her hand but Cathy herself.

'You again!' she laughs. 'What are you doing down here? It's much nicer upstairs. At least while you're waiting you have windows and can see the sky!' 

I tell her I was just wandering about, exploring, feeling what it's like to be one of her patients, that kind of thing, but then McKiernan turns up again, engrossed in his own clipboard. Cathy has to go and so off she skips, chirping that she'll see me when she's off-duty, which won't be long. She stops to chat with McKiernan and I sit again and pretend to be looking at my phone, keeping my head down, but noticing now that they're glancing in my direction. Cathy must have told him we were together. She drops the clipboard and puts her hand to her mouth. She scurries back to me. I stand up to greet her and she slaps me in the face.

'How could you do that to me?' she pleads, tears streaming down her cheeks.

'I'm really, really sorry, Cathy! I didn't want to change anything. At least for as long as was possible.'

'What the hell do you mean by that?'

The heads of all the waiting patients are now turned towards us. She grabs me by the arm and we walk hurriedly towards McKiernan. She ushers us both into a corner, huddled out of sight from the bewildered patients.

'What do you mean you didn't want to change anything? You have pancreatic cancer! How could you not tell me about this?'
'I wanted to be your partner, Cathy. For as long as I could. Not your patient.'
She bursts into tears on McKiernan's shoulder. He just looks at me in helpless pity. Then Cathy apologies to McKiernan, fetches her clipboard from the floor and rushes upstairs without once  looking back.                                                                                                                         

Final episode next week! Catch up on: gregoryrosenstock.blogspot.com    

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