No time abates the first despair and awe, But wonder ceases soon; the weirdest thing Is felt least strange beneath the lawless law Where Death-...n-Life is the eternal king; 25 Crushed impotent beneath this reign of terror, Dazed with mysteries of woe and error, The soul is too outworn for wondering. IV He stood alone within the spacious square Declaiming from the central grassy mound, With head uncovered and with streaming. Palmer gave the stirring speech everyone had expected, although not quite hearing what they had expected from him. But those lined up waiting for their introduction, congratulations and receipt of their scroll laughed and clapped and cheered because they were all intoxicated — either by liquor or excitement or both. ‘I arrived at this university broke and I leave in exactly the same way — broke. But the journey from that stumbling beginning — I seem to remember I was drunk on my first day —. I can't say it was all that easy to do though. I hated lying to her. But I just put it in the vault as Jerry Seinfeld would say. Then a few days later, John and I were alone again in the living room sitting on the couch. “So we're alone now,” John said. “I noticed,” I replied in a tone. “Well, I'd be a bad sexual friend if I didn't ask what was wrong,” John said. Then I took a very deep breath. “Well I guess I'm just really feeling bad about lying to Jeanette. She thinks I'm dating some fake. She held up the tiny dress. It was so small. So impossibly small. Like the doll dresses that Nana had made for her at that ancient machine. But Nana was gone. Had been gone for over twenty years. A life time. An eternity…or so it seemed. She picked up a pink bow and sewed it about the tiny hole where the neck would be. She fiddled with it for several impossibly long moments. It had to be perfect. It just had to be. Nothing else would do. Perfection. ‘Good girl.’ The words echoed off the sides.