When There Is Pleasure, There Is Often

She Needs A New Journal. The One She Has Is Problematic. To Get To The Present, She Needs To Page Through The Past, And When She Does, She Remembers Things, And Her New Journal Entries Become, For The Most Part, Reactions To The Days She Regrets, Wants To Correct, Rewrite.

In Hospitals I Feel Palpable Comfort. I Feel The Competence, The Expertise, So Much Education And Money, All Of The Supplies Sterile, Everything Packaged, Sealed Tight. My Fears Evaporate When The Automatic Doors Shush Open.

But Everyone Disappears, No Matter Who Loves Them.

You Have What I Can Afford To Give. You Are A Panhandler, Begging For Anything, And I Am The Man Walking Briskly By, Tossing A Quarter Or So Into Your Paper Cup. I Can Afford To Give You This. This Does Not Break Me.

We Have Advantages. We Have A Cushion To Fall Back On. This Is Abundance. A Luxury Of Place And Time. Something Rare And Wonderful. It's Almost Historically Unprecedented. We Must Do Extraordinary Things. We Have To. It Would Be Absurd Not To.