After she picked up the twentieth Tarot card to begin another preliminary sketch, she became aware of the fact that the flickering candles were making her extremely tired. She knew that being tired all the time was more from the monotony of being a single parent and had little to do with a full night of prostitution that she hadn't even yet begun to complete. For a moment she blamed a woman's susceptibility to become a mother for her blas? existence but it had been her choice to remain pregnant and it was her choice to raise this being whom she could have easily given away for adoption. Likewise, it was her choice to not seek employment. She had striven for isolation; but she hadn't done it with absolute perfection. She had given birth to a child and driven him into her shadows although she might have done it all alone. She knew that she had that capacity. Human society was for her a boring fair ground with the same quick-thrill rides and the same clones in freak shows. The war of the "Kuwaiti theatre" and Saddam Hussein were freak shows that Americans entertained themselves with from their television shows. These freak shows bored and sickened her and yet she listened to war broadcasts from her radio with the gluttony of other news junkies. She liked radio. She could imagine news more accurately without the visual images. Apart from what important minds could vaguely construe to be permanent truth, human society was bereft of ontological meaning; the West was on a collision path with the environment and Islamic extremists; more and more societies possessed weapons of mass destruction that had the potential force that was beyond her imagination to conceive; and all societies were full of lies and manipulating fables disguised as truths-their own Moseses parting their own Red Seas. To be God's appointed bully of world events and His proponent of capitalism and democratic tyranny was the American myth. She often asked herself how she could even take on a janitorial job and sweep away the dirt of a capitalistic institution. How could she do functions that would keep it nice and operative looking? How could she empty its trash, and change its burnt out light bulbs when that institution was one of a billion which would bring about the destruction of the environment, the vitiation of curiosity and innovation among pampered capitalists, and often exploited third world workers. How could she contribute to society when she did not believe in it? The telephone rang. "Hello, Lily" "Rita speaking. How did you know it was me?" "I'm a supersensory," said Gabriele. "What is that?" "I'm a psychic-witch, Rita." "Really? Witching allows you to know who is on the phone?" "I'm just joking." "Oh. Am I disturbing you?" " No, actually I was wanting something to keep me from falling asleep. What can I do for you?" "Gary called. He wants to see me tonight"