There was a television pinned to the soup kitchen wall tuned to a news channel despite the many complaints from those queuing. They'd rather watch a q...iz show or a situation comedy that showed a life of indescribable luxury led by middle-class families affluent enough to live in a gated community. What made matters worse was that Roland insisted on screening news from the EBC which was a television company that currently attracted only a small percentage of the national audience. And this was. She was reading books and I saw the lights powered off, then I went slowly near her room, to my luck she didn’t lock the door from inside, I saw through the key hole whether she has slept or not, while I was seeing she was taking some tablets (sleeping pills), then I waited near the door for some twenty minutes, then I slowly opened the door. She was in her sari; her children were in deep sleep. The blouse was very loose fitting for her, but she managed to cover with sari. This time she was in. I hadn’t had any idea how to prepare the pig carcass Kadavy had given us, but Vi apparently did. I had given her a knife and left her to it, and after an hour she had brought me some cuts of meat to cook. I didn’t care to ask where she had learned the skill, on her home planet before ADVENT had conquered it maybe? Was it some cultural thing passed down from snake to snake? It didn’t matter.I kicked the dusty ground, frustrated, then turned to look at Vi. She had no problem scaling structures,. Jackie practically fell into my lap, I didn't have to be smooth, or a sweet talker. We'd been schoolmates, then friends - then lovers - and then 'boom' we're married; now I'm a widower, a widower turning 40 in two weeks."Turning to me and looking me straight in the eyes she said, "You want me to set you up on a blind date, Bill?" Oh, Shirley — No, not a blind date - Anything but a blind date?" I rolled my eyes to help make my point."I actually ran into someone who knows about your situation,.