Racism) is, at last, waning more and more. As with the first installment, this one is dedicated to Alicia and Oscar (and of course, to Ahmed)!! ]The e...ening that Alicia and I got married, I remember very clearly thinking, as we exchanged our vows, that at that very moment, she was already two months pregnant (but not by me, but by Ahmed); and as I stood there, surrounded by members of both our families, I felt so intensely exhilarated. In fact, I was so excited by this fact, that I had trouble. "Actually, it means that I'm at the bottom of the heap. I only get to teach the undergrad intro courses; tenure's not even on the horizon, and people like me get jerked around by the administration." He started waving the remote back and forth while he was talking. "Last year I had the schedule from Hell. I was teaching five courses, commuting between both campuses, and it was just crazy! Sometimes in the car, I had to look up where I was supposed to go next, which course am I teaching now?. Alina had grown up in the village of Lyrisa, one of many that dotted the mountainous region known as Relicium, and she couldn’t remember a single night where anything but shadows and darkness came from the castle. It stood like a bleak sentinel, halfway up the mountain that overlooked the village and the rest of the valley; its far side perched on the seemingly precarious edge of a cliff that dropped sharply into the sea. Constructed entirely of dark grey granite, it had long ago been overrun. That morning was all about weapons testing not mash or moonshine. I loaded the cruiser with all the weapons I owned and the two boxes of .22 mag ammunition. One box was plain hollow points ammo, and the other was the caulk and pellet bullets. I carried a couple of chickens and some old jeans to the range. I figured I could test the ammunition in either weapon, since they should react the same regardless.I stopped for more coffee at McDonald's on the way to Dobson. I didn't get out of the car.