"We’ve never seen anyone come back from this stage,” the other nurse said. ”It’s truly a
miracle.”
I thought it was the final goodbye because some people experience a period of well being
just before the end, and the Sisters were predisposed to seeing the bright side. Minutes passed
while colour returned to Birhan’s death mask.
On a follow up shoot weeks later, we found her playing in front of the station with her
father and some young friends.
“One out of how many?” I said, a second later.
“How many miracles would change your beliefs?”
“One won’t do,” I sputtered an impotent mix of menace and exasperation.
“Seek out other unlikely incidents, and you will twin your dismay.”
Taming obscenities into a terse, “It's not time for that.” I got up to leave.
“Lunch tomorrow—barbecued salmon?” Bonnie said in her own voice, “Come around
twelve, and bring the wine. You can tell me what just happened thennnn,” she said, in a rising
tone as I went down the stairs.
Chapter 32
Assumptions of Physical Reality
That evening, I could not help but consider Kha-lib’s words because the impact of working
the famine was highly resistant to forgetfulness once my clipped scenes of suffering had been
resurrected. I resolved that he may have a point about me and religion, but still I wanted to shout,
“What about the rest of them?” which took me back to Bonnie’s view on fairness and my anger
bled energy into a bleak sense of wonder about the ways of her Universe. “Cruel bastards,’
slipped from my lips before I slept fitfully.
I arrived at Bonnie's house on time, with a bottle each of red and white wine. Tapping on
the side door twice, I let myself in. She called a quick “Hello,” from the kitchen, and as if joining
sentences with elastics, she said, “Remember when Kha-lib told us that everything is always
changing, but subjectivity influences how we adapt?”
“Can we get a glass of wine first?” I said, topping the stairs.
Apparently not: “We both know that physical experience is an artifice for spiritual
development, the natural grace of which is that mankind’s endeavours are ultimately self-
developing, correct?”
“Yep,” I said, walking into the room. “But I have a question. What did Kha-lib mean by
calling my core predatory?”
She grinned, and said, “It’s about the base approaches to self-development; there are two
kinds, stalkers and dreamers. You are a stalker by nature—a predator’s approach to gaining
knowledge, while I am a dreamer by nature. We’ll come back to this at another time, but
sufficient to say that one is not better than the other. Fair?”
“Go ahead.”
“With lifetimes of gathering energy, the earth bound spirit can be aligned with spiritual
Intent, and when that integration takes place, you have become all that you can be in the human
form. So if my characters become a unified force and the momentum they align themselves with
is unstoppable, what do you think they could do with their power?”
“Not a trick question?”
“No.”
