after a mere five or four days off because of thankgsgiving break i don’t even know if i can do this anymore. that’s how quickly a good dog loses a good habit and goes back to biting the couch or haetever i dont even want to do it anymore ] im sweaty and salty and hurting and vaguely scared and restless the vague foreboding is back the sense of non-safety, of impending disaster the lurking windy outside fear that our house is going to burn, that one of us is going to die or become deathly ill and the superstructure is going to fail us. we live with a constant illusion that someonewill take care of us butin reality there is this ground-level constant electrical hum of the knowledge that we’re all on our own and the world is a cold hard cruel place for anyone left outside. the stars are bright and they bleach your bones we got that wolf blood in us; ir makes usmortal; we paid the price for survival and this is what we are now comfort is a temporary salve; civilization is a thin veneer Well I guess you can stay here a while, honey. They looked at each other over the table top. This place still had ashtrays. IT was a diner from another era. They kind of fusdged a little on the W2 form.She pu down as much as she coudl remember. SHe was pretty young when he ahd stolen her and pressed her into slavery. But sheknew a few things from her old identity. The rest they kind of just made up. was there ever a moment when she was like, why is she doing this? Why is she letting me stay here? Why is she being so nice to me? Maybe she reminded her of her own daughter, who had died. if she becomes a teacher, that is a little bit later. first she works here for a while, and discovers the books behind the glass in the swimming pool. and goes ona little quest to find them. she has plenty of questions to ask the manager, her new old friend. one day they sat down to talk about the books.