Canvas-back and Terrapin for Dinner

She didn't read any news today. She didn't write any either. She finished "The Age of Innocence" and had issues staying awake on this post-Ephiphany dull January day that weathercasters swore would be warm. The heat came on five or six times while she slept in the filtered sunlight this afternoon. The sky was cloudy and uninspiring, though she knew that to personify such a thing as the dome of the heavens was pathetic fallacy.

We accept many things that are pathetic and false. It would be simpler to list those which are not so. Cynicism of heart brings a mocking "no, not even that escapes falsehood" at every idealistic suggestion: "love" summarizes those suggestions. Distillations of marriage, filial, patriotic, Christian, neighborly, etc.

Love is contingent on honesty and practice. We may pose to "love our neighbors," but for the most part, we do so from behind glass, behind windows of the house, the car, the television.

She, too, doesn't fancy touching people. She has tried to make that an upfront condition, being one of the "we" as all go along pretending that the sky is judgmental even when it's sunny and that our actions are guided by these principles of justice and good.

Good gracious, remember the dream from this morning? A giant storm over an unlikely empty field, full of friends such as one finds on the Elysian, an alien ship's landing and a female voice calling her by name. The woman was dark-haired and offered a journey, irreversible and without contact with the current world. It had nothing to do with privilege or the foundations of actual decision-making. However, she had to refuse on the grounds of being married, that is, being expected and cherished so that to remove oneself would be the equivalent infliction of suicide. She did not wish to abandon her duty to those who loved her.

She recalls feeling regret only that she would miss something unknown, something implied as greater. She did not feel far enough into the future to admit any loss herself in leaving her friends, family, lover behind.

She laments the fact that time-travel is not a reality.