What happens when she can’t write? When even words, her very best friends and the marchers who never break ranks, when they won’t come? Then, she falls into the most indulgent contemplation, the most abstract romanticism, where Gustav Klimt and all the Romantics resided.

She remembers contemplating fate once, imagining that fate (grand destiny) must play itself out, and if it does not, that all the clocks in all the world must simply come to a stop and time will start to go backward, for minutes, then years, then eras, finally eons, until the moment is discovered when fate went off it’s rails. And then, fate corrects itself, lifting itself back onto the treads, and time resumes. All is right with the world again.

Every moment since she was born, every step, has led her to this place. And those around her, to their places. Where they converge, into fire and into brilliant light and into an understanding that only the very fortunate ever get to glimpse, in their one life, this one. She is thankful she gets to see it.

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The animal lit upon the the panic button, paws and fur and limbs pressing upon it hard, helpless against the threat of being at the mercy of a lion who may embrace her, may desert her.

The animal exhibited all the typical responses, fully in Fight or Flight Mode:
Acceleration of heart and lung action
Paling or flushing, or alternating between both
Inhibition of stomach and upper-intestinal action to the point where digestion slows down or stops
Constriction of blood vessels in many parts of the body
Dilation of blood vessels for muscles
Inhibition of the lacrimal gland (responsible for tear production) and salivation
Dilation of pupil (mydriasis)
Auditory exclusion (loss of hearing)
Tunnel vision (loss of peripheral vision)
Shaking (the interminable shaking!)

The animal tells herself to gather her courage. Be brave.

She is a small animal, licking her small paws, waiting for the Crown’d King to call her to the glory of his audience…he, the host of the kingdom.

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