He knew he had to save his load for Francis’s nightly dose. Patrick tucked his shrinking manhood back into his boxers. In short order, he was dresse... and walking to work. A large collection of samples to sequence awaited him at the Centre for Structural and Functional Genomics. It was time to make up for taking Tuesday off. Patrick sighed. His passion was hydroponics, but the funding was in genomics. A friend interrupted his silent lament. ‘Good morning Romeo. How is the misses?’ It was Dr. Sam. In a way the telling is good. It is the first time I am able to say my tale to one who listens. In my pod none wish to hear me, and here by the land it is the same until now. But as I speak I am sad once again, and the Lone One makes it more sad when he tells me what I tell myself. “The land is very big,” he says. “Much bigger than you know. Even if you are right that the boat takes him there, I do not think you will find him.”I ask him what is a boat, and he says it is the name for the hollow. She shook her head, eyes wide.“I have two friends,” Mike told her casually, “that are roommates. And idiots, both of them. One of them wrote ‘Dummy’ on the forehead of the other while he was sleeping. As a gag, for no reason. With permanent marker. The second friend had to have his sister show him how to cover it up with makeup for a month. He scrubbed it every night for that month before he could finally get it faded enough. Idiots.” He chuckled to himself and shook his head.He finally stood. I left the house wondering what the hell I had done wrong. I asked my dad about it when I got home. He told me that there were black people who were just as racist as some whites. He told me that maybe in time things might work out, but for now I should heed the man's words. After all it was his daughter.I saw Beth the next day at school. She told me she and her dad got into an argument about me. She told her dad that she liked me and I was a nice guy. He just got madder and forbid her to see.