Having breakfast with children present fills my heart with joy. It feels like family. The feeling is enhanced when a little girl asks you to put butter on her sandwich because she is occupied petting a kitten.
N: Have you given her a name?
P: No. I thought that she might already have a name, which I need to find out
N: But she is a cat. She can’t tell you her name.
P: You are describing the problem correctly.
N: You are odd.
P: Yes. Do you want a tomato on that sandwich?
N: Yes. With salt. Without pepper.
She has classified me correctly.
S: Can we go to the beach?
Z: After breakfast. By the way, Maria called. She is extatic that the borders have been reopened. She is likely to arrive in the late afternoon.
S: Cool.
Maria is one of our mutual friends, who is a musician. She has talent, but has failed to make a commercial breakthrough.
S: Do you know how to swim at all?
P: Yes, I know how to swim. I was even on a boat during the emergency.
N: Did they make you leave your home?
P: Technically yes, but not because it was dangerous, but because they wanted me to fight monsters.
N: Was that scary?
P: Once it was. Other than that had I good comrades.
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S: Did they leave you that one time?
P: No, I had to travel in such way that they could not follow me.
N: Can we take the cats to the beach?
Z: No. They are cats, not seals.
P: Cats don’t like to swim.
N: I like to swim. But cats are cute. I wish I were a cat.
--
#2: Now?
#1: No, we need to give him more time to be sure he feels absolutely required to protect them.
--
Can I tan? I sure hope so, for I look like an instrument of surrender compared to the other people here. Outright embarrasing. At least I am a fit white flag. The water is very nice and the sun is warm.
After one look at my bleached state Zora takes out the extra strong sunblocker and liberally slathers it on me. That stuff is supposed to resist water, so I have no issue playing with the kids in the water. Zora is sunning on the beach, which unfortunately was stony. That was nice to see. The kids and I are watching little crabs in the rocks. The shore is a place full of life, which just lifts my heart.
--
#2: So you are going for her. Do you think they’ll go the same way?
#1: Unlikely. But it does not matter. He is one of those who feel a chivalrous impulse and are easy to assume guilt. He will think it is his own fault if she pushes him away.
#2: Won’t that drive him to react in a destructive way?
#1: No, this man is ruthless if he has to be, not brutal. You need to learn to tell these attributes apart in humans. They are not necessarily linked.
--
Meeting Maria is like the old days. She is like a squirrel on amphetamins. Cute but incomprehensible. I’ve learned, I think, that the recording industry is pushing for more online stuff, because a certain kind of transparent plastic used in making CDs is in short supply for reason I don’t understand, which hurts small arists more because you can sell a CD after a gig much more easily than a subscription to some online service.
My sanity is being protected by her having driven a long way today, which has led to her basically falling asleep at the dinner table.
--
Zora has caught me sitting in the garden looking at the stars.
Z: What do they mean to you?
P: How small I am. And that the aliens come from somewhere else.
Z: Thinking about the future?
P: A bit. Too uncertain. More like what it means.
I am becoming quite aware that she is sitting down next to me with a bottle in her hand and leans on me.
Z: The past, then.
P: You mean paths not taken?
Z: Yes. Sometimes a later road also leads to a good place.
--
#1: Time to activation?
#2: Between 200 and 250 minutes.
#1: Activate
#2: Activated.
#1: Let’s get out of here.