I just flowed around it," I said. "He got me, anyway." Like water. Like Coach was getting you to do on the court," she whispered. I nodded again. "And...you still didn't kill him." She sounded so disappointed in me."I trapped his arm against my head and spun into it. I broke the elbow and kept pulling until I could reach his face with my elbow. I shattered the bridge of his nose. It was like he couldn't feel pain. He dropped the knife into his left hand and I snap-kicked him in the balls. He hit. .. errr ... The sprouting grass sways in the wind under the shade of the great oak?”This was phrased as a question, mostly because James had no idea what he was saying. He was just making up synonyms and metaphors to express himself.Whatever he just said, the prune faced monk liked it. “Ho ho. Good! The strong eat the weak while the weak are eaten. The Tigers prey on the hoppers, unaware of the dragon ... Stop using these toys and fight with my apprentice seriously.”Then to James’ great. “Can I see it?”Alan laughs and says, “You’re not exactly shy, are you?”“Not when I know what I want,” the woman answers, feeling a surge of confidence. “I have to see it it’s as big as I think it is.”“You mean if it’s as big up close as it looked at a distance,” he offers.Debbie feels the blood drain from her face. How could he know? “You know?” she asks.“Of course,” he answers. “There isn’t much that slips past me, especially when it comes to my company. I leave the door to my bathroom. This was like that. There was light, but it was brighter than any morninghe had known. And he felt like he was... floating, drifting on a bed ofnothingness.For a moment he felt disorientated, and panic threatened to overwhelmhim, but the logical side of his brain told him that as he was dead, thismust be heaven.Heaven? He laughed. How logical was that?But -he couldn't argue- here he was. After decades of his own religiousindifference, it seemed he finally had the answer that both believers.