So just a slave? I definitely did not think of this when they explained the transition to me. Mark should show up any minute now It is almost 2:00, so he needs to learn to get here earlier. The clinic needs him to learn to be regular. Voyager needs him to learn to be prompt. But for now we have plenty of time: four hours a day, three days a week, until he can do it alone. And let me go to Trinity. Maybe I should make this training take a really long time?
LISTS When I finish my breakfast I head north to Paradise and Oroville. I visit Paradise for the reminder. My family did not lose anything to the Camp Fire, but a friend in Napa lost everything but her husband and two cats to the Glass Fire. The fire burned through the area so fast that it simply ‘trimmed the flora’ and the hills are nicer than before the fire. More sunlight. More rattlesnakes. Very pleasant if you have the money and insurance to build back your home. But those less well-off became homeless. Next I venture over to Oroville and a tavern up by the dam. The parking lot is full of high-torque pickup trucks… and a camouflaged, all-terrain, golf cart. This is a different type of town from where I had coffee this morning, but there are similarities in religiosity, isolation, and xenophobia. The believers and beliefs have just diverged. I sit in the back corner booth viewing the whole restaurant and making sure I am visible. “A few months” meanders through my mind. “What would you like today?” the server asks me. “The Usual” I say with a smile. -8-
