[... silence ...]

     (makes a prayer)

     [... silence ...]

     Me: “Why does this keep happening?  Work my ass off for a client, don’t get paid, and suddenly it’s all twisted into me being the bad guy…”
     Voice: Desperation… so strong a need that you impair your own judgement and do business with people you know are going to take advantage.
     Me: “Need clouds judgement… ”
     Voice: …so you must stop making choices based on desperate need and begin establishing beneficial, long-term connections…
     Me: “Get out of survival mode…”
     Voice: …and stop trusting out of necessity rather than trusting logically.
     Me: “But they’re still asshats…”
     Voice: Then stop dealing with asshats.

     Me: “Duplicitous… Four months ago you told me not to let my head rule my heart.”
     Voice: That was different.
     Me: “Why?”
     Voice: You should never talk yourself out of faith in the things that make you happy.
     Me: “And if I don’t, and I’m still unhappy?”
     Voice: Are you?
     Me: “It fell down again…”
     Voice: Then you should ask yourself much you helped it along.
     Me: “Every second of every day.”
     Voice: You didn’t learn the first time, did you?
     Me: “Learn what?”
     Voice: Happiness should never be questioned.  Accept it, and it’s yours.

     The entity known as Mark Steel began life forty-something years ago.  From an early in life, he experienced a great deal of pain and loss.  And so it was that he never realized that he was alive until Sunday, July 29th, 2007 at approximately 12:30PM EDT.

     On Sunday, March 9th, 2008, at around 2:30PM EST, Mark Steel died.  He was kept alive artificially, left alone and disconnected in a world of rampant emotion and a severe and growing depression.
     On Saturday, September 20th, 2008 at precisely 11:25:02 AM EST, artificial life support was terminated and the entity passed into the ether.  Its last words were reportedly, “I love my Wildcat.”  Unceremoniously, the ashes of the deceased were scattered at Cades Cove, Mount Zion Cemetary, Citico Creek, Indian Boundary Lake, Tellico Plains, Calhouns on the River, below Norris Dam, Cumberland Gap, and the Holiday Inn Express in Harlan, KY.
     The surviving corpse continues to function in most respects, however lacks the ability to harbor emotional attachments or act on moral judgements.

     Forty people around you point out your faults.

     One person loves you the way you are.

     Who do you run to?

     Let’s say you’re holding forty things that make you unhappy.

     There’s something within your reach that makes you happy.

     And picking that one up makes you drop those forty things…

     Where’s the logic in not picking it up?