A lump rises to my throat. \u201cWhat do you see?\u201d Crazy Bear sees auras and animal totems, and is regarded by several mutual acquaintances as a gifted clairvoyant. According to his third eye, I am, like him, a bear; though he claims I am a diminutive, lusty koala, while he himself is a Ukrainian black bear. The totem represents the last form, his theory holds, that a given individual occupied, prior to being human.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not sure. Maybe I\u2019m just projecting my gloominess. That happens.\u201d He looks uncomfortably around the cafe. \u201cLook, I shouldn\u2019t have mentioned it. It\u2019s good to see you. Be sure to let me see your drafts. I have to run. I think I\u2019ll go home and take a nice, long, decadent bath.\u201d He offers his hand.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, I have to be getting to my appointment. She can be vicious when you\u2019re late.\u201d We simultaneously rise and part.<\/p>\n
My step is more leaden as I resume my trek down Religion Row, as if I somehow contracted Crazy Bear\u2019s depression. Maybe it\u2019s that place, I theorize. What the hell kind of a name is that, anyway, Ennui<\/em>? And such a dump, really, considering those prices. No wonder it\u2019s always nearly deserted.<\/p>\n No, that\u2019s not it. It\u2019s that creepy death prophesy. I shudder. He\u2019s in a bad mood, I temporize, and he just wanted to bring me down. Despondency craves fraternity.<\/p>\n Why, then, did he rush so to change the subject and take leave of me before I could return to it? So I\u2019d be that much more shaken and uncertain. But it doesn\u2019t ring true. His flaw, if anything, is an excess of honesty; I can\u2019t imagine Crazy Bear being cruel enough to inflict that sort of dishonest prank on a whim. I\u2019ve always known him to be obsessively ethical within his unusual framework, even to a fault.<\/p>\n He was being philosophical, cryptic, declaring a generalization; only my<\/em> superstitious mind took it for a prediction. Which brings me back, loopishly, to, why didn\u2019t he just say so, when I was so obviously freaked? The only interpretation which seems to explain his action is<\/p>\n I\u2019m going to die.<\/em><\/p>\n Well, everyone is. Maybe he saw something fifteen, twenty years down the line, and thought I was too jelly to take even such long-term news. Maybe I am. I still<\/em> haven\u2019t called about the lab results.<\/p>\n I\u2019m never going to write that book.<\/em><\/p>\n It had never seemed important, before. The plans I mentioned to Crazy Bear were concocted on the spot, in fact; the matter of a follow-up to Desert Trance had listed somewhere between skinny dipping in my Jaccuzi with models, and bringing the Porsche in for an overpriced tune-up on my to-do schedule.<\/p>\n Now, with the reaper\u2019s shadow killing my buzz, writing just one more<\/em> seems to be the most urgent necessity of my existence. \u201cGoddess,\u201d I mumble. \u201cI know I\u2019m an ungrateful wretch.\u201d This is how I usually begin after long periods of unpious silence. \u201cI\u2019ve turned my back on you, and I don\u2019t blame you for not talking to me anymore. I\u2019m greedy, I\u2019m arrogant. I flush with pride over the words you whispered in my ear. I\u2019ve neglected my rituals. But, oh, Goddess, if ever you loved me, if I pleased you only a bit in serving as your word processor, let me live long enough to deliver another volume of your love to the world. In the name of the Moon, Earth and Sun, I pray. Bless my work, if not my life.\u201d<\/p>\n Which brings me to Llewellyn\u2019s. I put the morbidity on a back burner, and check my hair in the obsidian reflection near the elevator. Maybe I am<\/em> in love with her. Ridiculous.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A lump rises to my throat. \u201cWhat do you see?\u201d Crazy Bear sees auras and animal totems, and is regarded by several mutual acquaintances as a gifted clairvoyant. According to his third eye, I am, like him, a bear; though he claims I am a diminutive, lusty koala, while he himself is a Ukrainian black […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-86","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-transmigrant-blues","category-transmigrant-blues-round-3"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.amanamission.com\/transblues\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.amanamission.com\/transblues\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.amanamission.com\/transblues\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.amanamission.com\/transblues\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.amanamission.com\/transblues\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.amanamission.com\/transblues\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.amanamission.com\/transblues\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.amanamission.com\/transblues\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.amanamission.com\/transblues\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}