From: LadiMyra <ladimyra@aol.com>
Date: 06 Feb 2000 20:36:48 GMT
Subject: NEW: Whimsy (1/1)   S,R,A


Title: Whimsy
By:  Lady Myra (LadiMyra@aol.com)

Category: S, R, A 
Keywords: Alternate Universe, MSR, a bit odd
Rating: R
Spoilers: Nothing drastic - a little movie and a little Max 
mention. 

Summary: Scully and Mulder are separated by fate. When she finds 
a way for them to be together again, can he make the sacrifice 
necessary to join her?

Disclaimer: The X-Files and characterizations associated with it 
belong to Chris Carter, 1013 Productions and Fox. As far as I 
know, that's it. Not mine.

Archive: Gossamer, Spookys: yes. 
I'd appreciate a note from anyone else, but I'm likely to say 
yes if you're kind enough to ask <g>

~*~

I remember it all.

But the colors are faded, or maybe I never took the time to give 
them proper consideration. I may have been incapable of 
appreciating them. And it's a shame, really, for more than one 
reason. I cloaked myself in black and gray. But maybe the world 
was like that. I remember, for instance, a lot of brown.

Brown is an underestimated color; I know that now. The fertile 
soil is brown, damp but not wet, creative and full of texture. 
Grass in the winter isn't the green they talk about on the other 
side. It's brown: a washed out, yellowed brown.  His hair is 
brown, too. 

My mirage-life has a sleeping life and in that sleeping life, I 
dream. I dream of brown. I dream of gray and black, the colors 
that were once my shroud. But the mirage, the life I've created, 
is decorated in vibrant colors. It's picture postcard perfect, a 
refuge if only he would join me in it.

Make a list, check it twice. I'm telling you how to build a 
world here and how to make it count. 

The first thing you'll need, and you should underline this 
twice, is a foundation.  But, of course, any Cleetus at the Home 
Depot could tell you that.  And what will your foundation be?  I 
must admit mine was shit to begin with (ah-ha, more brown). 
Science, justice, whatever else it was I said I believed in just 
to be so God-damned right all the time. Worlds sink in shit. 
Make yours of stronger stuff and no, I won't say love, because 
that's just hokey and I'm not your Sleeping Oprah Beauty. But a 
wise man once said that all you need is love. Yes, Virginia, he 
was wrong, too.

For your foundation, I highly recommend concrete. Boring, yes. 
Gray, too. I think we have a theme here. Gray is a good color, 
hues of white and black intermingling, with perhaps some blue 
thrown in - strong, substantial. Gray is almost, but not quite, 
ready to commit to the absence of light. It's what you want 
under your feet. Anything lighter is too airy and unreliable. 
Anything darker can drag you down with it. 

Next, and I'm no builder mind you, but the frame comes next. 
You're not building a house, remember, you're building a whole, 
entire world and everything in it. No four-wall boundaries, no 
ceilings, not even vaulted ones, will do. It took me some time 
to learn that one. I first built for myself a new world of 
constriction, but then I missed him and the walls came down. 
He's forever tearing down the walls, even when he's way over 
there and I'm way over here -- an entire breath away.

Our first real kiss was like that, yes. And I mentioned that I 
remember it all, didn't I? I do. Oh, Sweet Mary, Mother of God, 
I remember it all. It was right before the beginning of the end. 

I don't quite sound the same now as I once did, do I? I 
apologize if I seem out of character. 

But he did kiss me and walls did come down. 

"Scully," he said, "Scully..."

"Yes, Mulder?" I was alert; his mood was odd. He didn't often 
trip over his words, especially my name.

"Sorry." He raked a well-tanned hand through his cinnamon hair. 
"Do you ever wonder why we never, well you know?"

It didn't come from nowhere. It had been a particularly 
difficult case, involving a lovers' pact and alien abduction and 
I remember thinking that if I was abducted again, it would be 
nice to have a lover with me. And someone had said to us that we 
made a nice couple and we had to correct them. No, we're not a 
couple. Which led to the inevitable question of why on earth 
aren't we a couple and what's so wrong with me and I don't want 
him that way anyway, right? But it's all so much foolishness.

"No, I don't know. What do you mean?"

He must have been charmed by my bravado, and for once in love 
with a lie. For, he kissed me then.

I've never been struck by lightening, but I imagine it would 
hurt. Mulder's kiss was more like static electricity. My hair 
stood on end. A balloon would have stuck to my head -- socks 
attach themselves like Velcro to my black skirt. What on earth 
wouldn't want to be part of me when I was part of him?

I forgot to feel my tongue for a minute and it got all mixed up 
with his, but I know that sounds juvenile. Guess what? Lean in 
closer. I'll tell you the truth: I felt like an adolescent in 
that moment; all the years of raging hormones and stark 
humiliation, shy resignation, rebellious indignation, and bold 
experimentation. Yes, it was like adolescence. 

So, he kissed me first, but I made love to him that night. 
There, on his living room floor, because he never meant to take 
it that far. But when we made that connection, it was imperative 
that I deepen it. 

I pushed, he pulled and so I ended up on him, on the floor, in 
too many damn clothes. I ripped into him, raging and whimpering, 
clawing and caressing. So much, wrapped up there in him, at 
once. Hot and wet, the world's best natural sauna. Good for the 
pores, too, making my skin silky soft. I was more aware of 
myself than I was of him in a way. 

I never felt smaller, or stronger. So fine, he must love the 
feel of my hip there, and the way he strokes my cheek. Yes, I am 
soft and beautiful. 

"God, Scully. You smell so good."

"I love you, Mulder. I love you." I scraped my fingernails along 
his nape. He cried and at first, I worried it was because I 
scratched too hard. But it ended up being some kind of unnamed 
joy and I cried too. I wasn't crying for myself; before that 
moment when it happened, I had no desire to cry. It was just 
that he cried, and so I cried. A contagious reaction. 

And after you have your foundation, and after you have your 
frame, you should choose your material carefully. This is a 
world you're building after all, and not some damn shop project. 

Twice, when I was a child, my family vacationed at the seascape 
town of Whimsy on the upper-left-hand Coast. The citizens of 
Whimsy worked hard to make the town live up to its name and 
attracted many summer tourists for their trouble. The main road 
ran parallel to the water and the Doll-beach-houses were painted 
with sharp, brilliant colors of coral pink, ocean blue, and 
sunflower yellow with pretty, ivy-green trim. It seemed an 
enchanted place. All around the town, I heard the ocean waves 
pounding the shore and smelled the briny sea.  

When I stopped building walls and ceilings, I decided to build 
my world in a different way. Choose your material carefully. I 
made mine out of whimsy, a thing sorely missed from my other 
life. Whimsy is something I would have rolled my eyes at once 
upon a time. 

It's never too hot here, and never too cold. At night, the stars 
and moon shine bright, their golden light falling gracefully, 
filtered through a clean, navy-blue sky. Sunrises are purple and 
sunsets orange russet. During the day, the sun keeps a 
respectful distance and the sky is dappled with an armada of 
white, copious clouds.

And there's a church. I built it first, mirrored I'm sure from 
the European Catholic Sanctuaries I've visited once or twice and 
seen in pictures countless times. It is gray stone, and the pews 
are a rich, deep mahogany with velvety blood-red cushions. But 
what's important, what keeps me here, is the glass. 

Light pours in to the church through colored glass, creating an 
elegant prism. It falls like a soft, thick blanket over the 
stone floor and heavy pews and spotlights the Alter. It is rich 
and ambient. I stand in the middle and the warmth of it 
envelopes me; I find my solace there.

In the life I left I never would have considered the solace to 
be found in warm light, or thought it sensible to build a world 
of whimsy. But the foundation is strong, the frame sturdy and 
light filters through. Many of the scenes set in glass have 
blood in them, so red is prevalent. Amber, brown-gold, glows; it 
is luminous. Sage and heather purple and blue, clove green, 
fuchsia Japanese peony - a field of colors, growing like poppies 
through cement-soil and just as intoxicating. 

It is beautiful and warm, but I am without him now, and so cold. 

That first time - on his floor - I was remembering that. Our 
clothes were off and we were frantic and we cried and he turned 
it all around. I was under him, flesh brushed flesh, soft and 
sticky and pulsing. We breathed heavily and panted out moans and 
sighs and it was messy and beautiful, as it should be. He 
entered me and I clenched around him, he moved inside of me and 
I rose and fell to match his rhythm. Every nerve ending screamed 
in exaltation, and I felt like some Technicolor vision, super-
real and beautiful. 

"Love you, Scully, love you. I love you." 

It didn't matter that the world was dark and cold. Monsters and 
liars and madmen waited around every corner. I had no control 
over that. I did not create that world; I only struggled to make 
sense of it. I was with him and it seemed a perfect Paradise.

And now I've built one, and damn it, he's not here. 

~*~


I've forgotten so much, too much. 

Scully has been gone for five years, and too often I forget her 
clean, vanilla scent, the sound of her infrequent laughter, and 
the way the sun got tangled up in her copper hair. I have a 
snapshot memory of these things, but their motion is lost to me, 
except in dreams.

Contrary to my own expectations, I have gone on without her. 
First, I lived for revenge. And I got it, killing the men who 
forced her off that bridge. In the process, I lost my job. And, 
I thought: now. Now is when it will kill me. But it's never that 
easy. Despite myself, I live on.

Without her, I lost the will to truly fight. I had believed that 
it was I who drove the quest -- that it couldn't go on without 
me. But without her, my heart was no longer in it. What was 
there to fight for anymore? She made it worthwhile. When she was 
absent from that equation, I became what I held in contempt: a 
hack like Kurtzweil, a joke like Max Fenig. I lost credibility 
and I couldn't have cared less. 

I lost my faith in miracles. I lost my faith in the unknown. 

But, I have continued.

The only substantial thing in my life is a woman, once sharp and 
vibrant - the most vivid person I've ever known despite her 
attempts to hide it - who now lies in a persistent vegetative 
state at the Secret Garden Sanitarium in Richmond, Virginia. I 
used to visit her every night. I kept it up for almost one full, 
sleepless year. That was the year of my revenge. I searched, I 
pushed, I begged, bribed and blackmailed. Then, each night, I 
made the long drive out to Richmond and sat at Scully's side. 
And cried at Scully's side. And slept at Scully's side, allowing 
my body to believe that she lay beside me in a lover's dreamless 
sleep.

I wondered how the hell it had ever come to that.

That night - I still see it so clearly. It was The Fourth of 
July and we were on the Timothy Leary overpass. Night had fallen 
and the city was alive with celebration. 

We had created our own fireworks the night before, when we made 
love for the first time. We only had the one night, and one 
morning, and that afternoon in the car when she made me pull 
over into a grove of trees. I knew I would spend the rest of my 
life worshipping her body, loving the soft gasps and keening 
noises she couldn't control. Why the hell did we wait so long? I 
ask myself that every day.

We weren't even on a case that night, but someone was on ours. 
Unlike most of the maddening crowd, we were driving away from 
the city; she was laughing at my imitation of Skinner. I didn't 
see the dark sedan pulling up behind us, accelerating and 
speeding into us. It caught us both by surprise, jerking the car 
out of the lane and onto the median. I slammed down on the 
accelerator, spinning, trying to avoid contact with the cars 
around us. 

"What the hell?" Scully murmured, and turned in her seat to try 
to get a look at our attackers. "Black-tinted windows. I can't 
make them out." Her voice was clipped, professional. She was 
scared and tense, but completely in control. 

They kept pushing, playing bumper cars. Rubber was burning, the 
smell acrid. Metal screamed against metal, then against concrete 
railings. We were whipped around like rag dolls, unable to make 
out our attackers. At the height of the overpass, around the 
sharpest curve, they finally hit us so hard I went up on the 
railing and stuck there. They stopped behind us and without a 
word spoken, Scully and I crawled out the driver's side window. 
Two men in standard-issue CIA black suits and dark sunglasses 
rocketed out of the sedan and ran after us. They were armed. We 
were not.

I relive those last couple of minutes on a near-constant 
subconscious loop.  It was all sensation and desperate flight. 
Most of the city was at home or in the Mall celebrating, the 
overpass was practically empty. She was wearing those damned 
heels, but I wasn't going as fast as I could've and adrenaline 
pushed her, so she was only half a step behind me. I felt and 
heard my heartbeat, keeping time with our footfalls, and heard 
her explosive exhalations. Fireworks were detonated in the 
distance: red, white and blue light exploding in giant mushroom 
clouds.

A shot was fired, and she careened away from me, toward the edge 
of the overpass, falling back against the railing and flipping 
over it onto the grassy median below.

It's painful to relive what happened next. I'll tell you about 
the dreams I've been having instead.

They began not too long ago. Of course, I've dreamed about her 
countless times before, but those dreams were different - 
composed more of memory than imagination. Real events twisted 
into fairy tales in a way, bent sometimes toward the happily-
ever-after and sometimes toward the whatever-you-do-don't-go-in-
there. 
 
Several weeks ago, after a few too many beers and another mind-
numbing day of listening to ill-gotten satellite transmissions, 
I dreamed of a church. Double-doors, strong and heavy, opened 
into a large sanctuary filled with light. It filtered through 
stained glass windows and sun-catchers that were hanging from 
high rafters. Churches usually seem cold to me, imposing and 
basically undesirable. They always make me think of sin. But 
this church was warm and it was filled with all the colors of 
the spectrum, dancing on the stone floor. 

I walked toward the Alter and realized that beautiful music was 
playing, something I had never heard before. It was soft, but 
full and distinct and very soothing. The effect was 
intoxicating.

I don't know why I said, "Scully?" because I never saw her there 
that first time...but then the dream was over. I remembered the 
church in the dream for days after that, but didn't see it again 
for a couple of weeks.

In the second dream, I was already in the church, kneeling in a 
pew. I was praying the rosary, though I'm not a religious man 
and certainly not Catholic. The beads of the rosary felt smooth 
and cool in my hands, comforting. 

"Mulder, you came." 

I had expected her voice, knew somehow that she would be there, 
but still it surprised me. In memories, her voice had faded, 
become one dimensional, losing pitch and tone. But in this 
dream, it was her voice again, real and imperfect - as low and 
full as snow falling on a rooftop. 

"Did I have a choice?" I turned around to look at her.

She was breathtaking, more alive and real than any memory. More 
alive and real than her physical body, lying in that institution 
with drool trailing down her chin and hair cut short for easy 
care, atrophied body and slack-jawed face. No, the Scully in 
front of me was as vibrant as the colors in the church. Her 
beautiful hair was silky and fell to her shoulders in waves, her 
alabaster skin was lit from within, and she wore a long, white 
dress that reflected the colors shining through the glass, an 
ever-changing palette. She was luminous. 

"I think maybe you did. I could never control you, or take you 
where you didn't want to go." She spoke softly. 

"That's not true, I'd go anywhere." 

"Still? Would you go anywhere, Mulder? What if it meant giving 
me control?" She walked slowly toward me, but didn't come close 
enough. Though I wanted to close the distance between us, I 
found myself unable to move. She did have control -- it wasn't 
mine to give her. 

"This isn't real," I said. I felt the need to say that, to stake 
a claim on reality. "This isn't real."

"What is real, Mulder? I always thought I knew, but I was wrong. 
For all you know the world you live in could be somebody's 
elaborate dream. It could be the atom in the fingernail of some 
giant who is, in turn, part of a world that is the atom in the 
fingernail of some even larger giant. All it takes is 
imagination."

"You sound like me, now." I stopped, struggling to understand. 
"Whose dream is this?" I finally asked.

She walked past my pew, to the Alter and sat on the step, 
curling her legs up to rest her chin on her knees. "It's not a 
dream, Mulder. It's mine. I built it." She paused for a moment, 
looked down, seemingly unsure. "For us. It's as real as anything 
and you can join me here, if you are prepared to jump the 
chasm."

"This is just a dream," I said. "An impossible dream."

"All you have to do is believe, Mulder." 

And it was over. I woke up to find my hands clenched, as if they 
still held the rosary. But there was nothing there. It was only 
a dream, it was impossible, it was only a dream. This wasn't 
happening.

I worked hard to forget, to dismiss the dream. But I smelled her 
scent, heard her laugh and remembered the silk of her hair 
caressing my chest. Everything I'd forgotten was remembered. I 
couldn't give it up.

For several nights, I didn't dream, and it seemed that the more 
I tried to sleep, the harder it became. 

Last Sunday, I went to visit what's left of Scully in Richmond 
for the first time in months. I despise that place, with its 
medicine-clean smell, as if everyone in it is already embalmed. 
Scully's in the vegetable ward, five rows beyond the broccoli 
and just before the carrots. 

Her body is a whitewash, dry and colorless. She gets sponge-
baths, and she's  turned on schedule to avoid bed-sores. She 
would hate this life; she would want to die. But her condition 
does not require life support, and though she's fed through a 
tube most of the time, she can swallow baby food when it's 
placed in her mouth. 

I watched her intently and saw her eyes making constant sweeps 
behind her lids. What did she see? Was she kneeling in her 
church, watching the lights dance across the floor? Of course 
not. That was a dream, a fragment of my imagination. But she'd 
told me to believe.

"Scully." My voice sounded thick to my own ears, full of need 
and fear. "If it's real, please give me a sign. I need to know." 
Her mouth moved slightly, reflexively. She made soft smacking 
noises as saliva slowly trickled down her mouth to her chin. 
She'd certainly had more attractive days (like the way she used 
to look, so crisp and hard and cold, but soft underneath only to 
me, in that black skirt and tailored jacket with one of those 
tight little shirts underneath, hair jet-lined and shining in 
the sun, blue eyes piercing and alive). 

I don't know; maybe her eyes rolled back in her head and I 
thought I felt her hand tighten on mine, but I'd had such 
delusions before. And still, she lay, no sign given.

After some time of watching her and crying over her and praying, 
I became sleepy. It seemed the most natural thing in the world 
to crawl into the narrow bed with her. And the thought that the 
sheets mustn't have been changed in a while was only a vague 
one. I curled up into her, awkwardly pulling her small, 
quiescent body to mine. Over the years, she'd lost her distinct, 
clean smell. She smelled medicinal now.

We lay there for some time, until I felt tired and languid. I 
fell asleep wrapped around her. 

And this time I stood on the steps of the church, looking 
outward over the town. It was sharp and clean, infused with mid-
October air. Birds flew out over the vibrant ocean and beach-
front homes sat primly on white sand. There were small boats, 
bobbing in the water, tied to perfect, white, little piers. The 
only sound was that of the water lapping up to the shore. Then, 
silence.

In the distance, beyond the vibrant town, the sky fell onto 
land, washed into cotton-candy trees, like an Impressionist 
painting.  

"I'm still working on some things." She approached me from 
behind. "I haven't been able to fill in all the details, yet."

"Still, it's beautiful." I was afraid to turn and look at her, 
scared to wake from the dream.

"Thank you. There's still so much to be done. I'm glad you came; 
I've been hoping you might come to me and help."

"I can do that? Visit?" Her hand touched my shoulder -- real, 
physical contact. For the first time in years I felt the 
strength of that touch and its effect on my senses. She could 
touch me in that world; I was amazed. I turned to look at her. 
She gazed out at the horizon, as lovely as the view and so alive 
it hurt to look at her.

"Not like this, not temporarily." She moved to face me, and 
looked up with beautiful, mysterious eyes. "This is too draining 
for me, Mulder - to pull you from the conscious world to my 
unconscious one. It's no good. I don't have enough to spare. But 
you could join me here. I can teach you how to do this and we 
can be together." 

"How? What do I have to do?" It could have been part of the 
dream, my easy acceptance of what was happening as fact. I'm 
still not sure I was there, that it exists.

"You have to join me in both worlds. Mulder, you're going to 
have to choose me twice." She was conflicted, I could tell; 
she'd considered not asking me, not bringing me in. I was still 
unclear about why.

"Let me see if I understand this. Do I need to die?"

"No. When you die, you don't get to create your own world, you 
join another one. But I'm alive. I'm here and I'm stronger and 
more sure than I've ever been. All I need is you."

"So, I have to do what? Become a vegetable? Scully, I don't know 
if that's even possible."

"Yes, then you have to find me. I'll try to help, but you have 
to find me. We can be together here, maybe forever. And it can 
be done. It can be medically induced, but you'll have to find 
someone you can trust to administer the right drugs."

"My God, you're serious. This is insane."

"Insane where? It's not insane here. I've built all this for us. 
Every day, I struggled to turn my vision into reality. And isn't 
that your specialty? Alternate realities? I love you, Mulder. 
Come to me. Be with me."

It could have been a dream. Must have been. Scully never talked 
like that, never used words like need and love, when we were 
partners. She never begged, never beguiled. 

"Just the two of us?" I asked, as if I had no doubts. 

"Don't worry," she said, smiling, "I know it sounds like a 
recipe for disaster - us alone, together, for all time. We'd 
drive each other crazy. But, it won't be like that. I promise. 
Mulder, I've never lied to you."

I'm sure that she has lied to me once or twice, but I've lied to 
her, too. That's all in the past.

"What if I do this, Scully, and none of it's real? I'll be 
ending my life for nothing." 

"You're so skeptical. I've taught you well." She seemed pleased 
with me in a way. "Take a walk with me."

She led me down the steps to her quiet street below, and we 
strolled, arm in arm. It felt for a moment old-fashioned, like 
this was a courtship -- slow and leisurely. When I was close 
enough to the small, colorful houses, I peeked in. Most were 
empty and blank inside. 

"Where do you live?" I asked.

"I live in the church. I have a bed behind the Alter." She gave 
me a look that dared me to question that. 

"I'm not living in a church, Scully." And I realized for the 
first time, that I was giving her proposition real 
consideration. She must have known it too, because she smiled.

"We'll live anywhere you want, Mulder. We can live on a boat in 
the middle of the ocean, if you'd like. We can sleep under the 
stars." She steered us out onto the pristine beach. Looking 
down, I noticed that she was barefoot and sinking gently into 
the sand with each determined step.

"You're asking me to give up everything." I wondered if I was 
fooling her, or if she knew just how desperate and lonely my 
life was without her.

Her eyes were sad when she turned to look up at me. She reached 
up to brush her fingers over my cheek, trailing them from my 
brow to my chin. I felt a rush of energy and desire wash over me 
at the small physical contact.

"I'm asking you to start a new life, Mulder. If you give 
yourself over to it, we can build a perfect world."

"Together." I finished for her. And I angled myself to her for a 
kiss, feeling certain that before my lips touched hers, I would 
wake and the dream would be over.

Fate allowed the kiss, though. Kissing her was everything it had 
been in life: passionate, tender, never enough. Over too soon.  
Her mouth opened under mine, warm and soft and she pressed 
herself against me; I felt desperation in her -- a desire to 
make me need her more. 

It was she who finally broke it off. Scully stepped back, and 
turned to face the horizon. It was Sunset and the ocean was a 
brilliant reflection of the sun's fire. Her world was a 
beautiful one. I pressed myself to her back and wrapped my arms 
around her; she raised her hands to hold onto mine.

"I'm afraid," I admitted.

Her voice was soft. "I know. So was I, I was afraid when I was 
with you out there - afraid all the time of the unknown, 
constantly paranoid about what was around the corner. But, no 
matter what, we always turned that corner. Didn't we?"

"Yes." I wanted to be the voice of caution, to tell her no, I 
couldn't do it, wouldn't. It was crazy and unreal, but I'm not 
the voice of reason or fear.  That's never been my role. All I 
wanted was to believe.

"So, turn the corner."  Her voice was firm, meant to reassure. 

"I don't know -" I would have said more, then. But I awoke to 
find myself tangled up in Scully's sheets, clinging to her 
comatose form. My face was pressed into her neck. Neither of us 
smelled very good. I looked at her infirm, motionless face and 
found no sign of the woman from the dream. 

For the first time in five years, I feel I have a decision to 
make that is meaningful and real. Meaningful and real only if 
what I believe is the truth. I've come this far - if it's real, 
it's a risk worth taking. If it's real, I'll join her. My life 
now is colorless, there's little left to lose.

But, how do I know if it's real?

~*~

The large, stone church is notable for its stained glass and the 
vibrancy of color. A small woman kneels alone in the front pew, 
praying. All her energy and desire seems to be taken up in 
prayer; her face is tense, eyes closed tightly and she clings to 
the rosary like a lifeline.

From behind her, the doors are suddenly opened and heavy, white 
light rolls in. She does not notice at first, so intent is she 
on her prayer. She does not turn to see the man who walks slowly 
through those doors. He's tired, the slump of his shoulders 
reveals that much, but his face reflects his wonder and joy. 

He begins walking toward her, respectful of the silence in the 
room. Still, she has not noticed him; she does not hear his soft 
footsteps on the stone floor. She believes she is alone, 
believes it might be so forever. 

And softly, so softly, and with joy, he approaches.

- The End -

I dig feedback with a spoon --- 
Please send it to: LadiMyra@aol.com

~Lady Myra~

You know we live in light and shadow --
that's what we live in, a world of light and
shadow -- and it's confusing.

	-- Vee, in "Orpheus Descending,"
		by Tennessee Williams