“No comment?”
“Again, I don’t know where you’re going with it, so I can’t say how good it is until you pull
it off.” I grinned like a cherub. “But I enjoyed it.”
“What points am I trying to make?”
In spite of receiving the most generous offering of pages to date, I was annoyed at having to
interpret her work at all, let alone assess it through the uncommon perceptions she expected.
Petulantly, I said, “You've mixed elements of the Tortoise and the Hare, the Grasshopper
and the Squirrel, a butcher, baker, and a candlestick maker...
“I wondered if you'd make that connection.”
“Jack and the Beanstalk, the Good Samaritan, a clever reference to the Rhyme of the
Ancient Mariner, and a not-so-subtle allusion to a fisher of men working with the Old Man and
the Sea.”
“I also have Simon Says and Doubting Thomas, but there's nothing about Jack and the
Beanstalk,” she said amused.
“Then there’s one less plagiarism lawsuit to deal with.”
“Ap-par-ently,” Bonnie said, drawing out the word so there was nothing merely apparent
about what was to come, “you were so busy judging the material that you missed the overview.”
I expected her to pause for my response, but I guess that’s why they’re called expectations.
Bonnie carried on. “Along with the other scenes you’ve read, this section demonstrates how
the teacher arrives when the student is ready, how teachers teach the unwilling, and how a
student can assess his life and see that it is designed for a purpose.”
“Like I’m supposed to have seen all of that.”
“Don’t be too hard on yourself,” she said, putting the story away. “It took Teyo two years
to understand it.”
And you’ve got about another week, I thought.
The next day, I crossed the First Narrows Bridge through a mist of misery—the fine fog that
forces bikers to wipe their faceplate every few seconds, to meet Bonnie at the café near her
home. Neither of us had brought pages from our books so our conversation was affably
mundane, talking about our early work experiences as the sky gradually lightened. When the first
bright rays in four grey days poked through, we paid our bill and doubled up on the motorcycle
to celebrate our parole in Stanley Park.
Walking within the casual quiet of our own thoughts, as had become our way to enter the
park, Bonnie said, “Can you tell me why you’re opposed to my metaphysical principles?”
Unable to deny her claim, I saw no point in delaying. “I don’t think coincidences or
suddenly knowing things are evidence of God at work or the devil at play. There's an explanation
for everything.”
“I agree, but you haven’t told me what you have against it.”
“I think the metaphysical world takes our focus away from things we could actually do to
improve any of this.” I waved a lazy hand at the world in general, almost smacking Bonnie in the
face as she abruptly appeared in front of me like an ebony panther leaping from a cave on a
moonless night.
