Part Six

            “A pig,” she said.

            Gabriel lay on his side resting his head on his left hand while his thin legs spread out on the blanket like the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers.  He watched Elisa’s lips become a ripe succulent plum as she pronounced the “p” in the word “pig.”  Gabriel wished that she would say it again so he remained silent letting the relaxing and constant sound of the Thames fill the void.  The moonlight found its way just enough through the trees so that Gabriel could discern the fine features of her face and the deep color of her lips.   His glass of Cabernet sat on the picnic basket and he reached over for it.  The cool evening air mixed with the nice buzz of the alcohol and Gabriel felt alert and in control.

            Elisa stood up and stumbled a little with her left foot catching the edge of the blanket.  The dried leaves crunched as she found her footing.  “He was nothing but a pig,” she said.

            Gabriel smiled at his little victory and took a sip of wine in a silent toast to himself.  “Ah,” he finally offered.  “He gave the world Women in Love and The Rainbow not to mention Lady Chatterley’s Lover.  Yes, Lawrence was a scoundrel but a genius.  I think that we can forgive him his infidelities.”  As Gabriel said this, he sucked in his belly but it still hung and nestled into the folds of the blanket.   “Besides, he understood women.  Of course he liked them.”

            “So,” said Elisa as she kicked a stone down the slope that dead-ended at the river’s edge.  “If a man’s a genius, he can fuck whomever he wants and belittle his wife and generally piss on people and we’ll forgive him because he gave us great literature?”

            Gabriel carefully put his wineglass down and sat up.  He attempted to cross his legs, but abandoned the idea.   Instead, he stretched them out again and leaned back on both elbows. “Dear heart, twenty years ago, I would’ve agreed,” he said through a smile.  “But, as you reach middle age, things get grayer.  You forget about the little things and look at the big picture, as they say.”

            Elisa stood motionless glaring at Gabriel.  He shifted a bit.  A rock or root prodded him in his left buttock.  She was all wrong for him and he knew it.  Too young.  Twenty-two years too young.  A goddamned sophomore.  Gabriel was right to break it off.  They shouldn’t even be friends.  He should be her professor and nothing more.  Chalk it up to experience.  But this nice little picnic that she set up as a surprise.  What was its purpose?  No hard feelings, Professor Morales?  Don’t worry -- I’m okay?

            “Well,” Gabriel finally said.  “Maybe Lawrence’s wife wanted it that way.  Maybe she asked for it.  But you’re still young.  You haven’t had the opportunity to experience people.  To really see people and what they do to themselves.”

            Elisa crossed her arms and shook her long black hair from her face.   “You little shit!” she said walking onto the blanket with her muddy boots.  “You little condescending piece of shit!”  Her left eye twitched like a finch’s wing with her dark eyebrow a loosened feather about to float off.

            Gabriel attempted to stand but he fell, face first, into the blanket with his nose almost touching Elisa’s left boot.  He could smell the wet clod of earth that clung to the toe of the boot.   He pushed himself up with all his strength and got on his knees.  But Elisa had already turned and now she stood by the large oak searching for something.

            “Elisa, dear,” huffed Gabriel as he finally got to his feet.   “What is all this?  I thought we were going to have a nice picnic and not argue.”

            Elisa did not turn or acknowledge Gabriel.  She suddenly stopped moving and stood still, bent a little, her head hidden by the tree.

            “Elisa,” said Gabriel thinking that she was being calmed by his reasonable and reassuring voice.  “Elisa, look at me.  Please.”

            Elisa stood straight but kept her back to Gabriel.  He admired her ramrod posture and the sleek athletic contours of her neck, back, buttocks and legs.  In her big-heeled boots, she towered over him.  The cool air and the rush of the Thames seemed to freeze the moment.  Elisa turned and faced Gabriel.  She smiled and Gabriel smiled back.  Then he saw it.  Elisa held a tire iron at her side.  She made a low-pitch moaning sound but she kept smiling.  The tire iron started to shake in her hand.

            Out of instinct, Gabriel turned and tried to run but he tripped over the picnic basket catapulting his wineglass into the air raining Cabernet over his face and back.  And then CRACK-CRACK-CRACK!  Gabriel winced in pain and he could no longer breathe.  He lay on the crumpled basket for a moment but scrambled to his feet and turned around to look at Elisa.  He clutched his left side and felt something hard and jagged protruding through his sweater.

            “Start running,” she said still smiling.  “Start running now.”

            And he did.  Gabriel knew that if he didn’t take this chance that Elisa offered, he might not escape.  So he started.  And for fifteen minutes, all he heard were his own footsteps and breathing as he stumbled through the dark with nothing more than meager moonlight to help him navigate towards safety.  And then he heard other footsteps.  Fast and steady.   Just as Gabriel seemed to find his stride despite the pain, a cloud consumed the moonlight and he could no longer discern the muddy and uneven terrain forty yards from the Thames.  He stumbled twice before realizing that the footsteps behind him did not falter or slow.  Gabriel stood and took a long painful breath and started again, clutching two broken ribs with his right hand and holding his left out before him in an attempt to avoid slamming into a tree.   “¡Pinche cabrón!” he said through his teeth cussing at the English countryside.  The cloud finally had its fill of the moon and moved on. Gabriel could once again see and he plunged ahead into the brush and woods.  His legs ached and he remembered his days at Loyola High School when he ran track.  The coaches called him “Gazelle.”  Muscular legs and a flat belly.  Faster than his height should have allowed.  He could move around the track like a carp slicing through calm waters.  But that was twenty-five years ago.  Before college.  Before graduate school.  Before becoming tenured at Stanford.  Before moving to England to introduce Wordsworth, Brontë and Swinburne to the Stanford students who made their temporary home at the mansion known as Cliveden at Buckinghamshire.  And before dining six nights a week on shepherd’s pie and Guinness at the Feather’s Lodge.  Everyone at Feather’s knew him and said he looked like a young, though darker, Richard Burton.  Now his belly hung over his belt like a Hefty garbage bag filled with overcooked couscous and his lean muscular legs atrophied to nothing more than baseball bats wrapped in mottled skin.   Gabriel clumsily ran and stumbled and crawled and scratched trying to find his way to safety.

            The Thames’ rushing sound grew fainter but the footsteps did not.   Ah!  The rose garden!  Even through his cracked and muddy glasses, he could see it.  The sight of the roses burning dark red in the moonlight were a beacon to the gravel path that lead to the mansion’s entrance and to others, to the students, to light and safety. Gabriel suddenly found his old self as his adrenal gland kicked into higher gear and he jumped over a hedge and landed solidly on his feet within the roses and he swiped them aside with his left arm.  The thorns ripped through his sweater and shirt and skin but he pushed on.  The pungent sweet smell of the roses filled his aching lungs.  And he still heard the footsteps.

Gabriel’s feet finally found the gravel road and he scurried towards the mansion where he could now see through the long narrow windows.  The electric lights from within Cliveden glowed warm and yellow and cast long shadows throughout the outdoor stone entryway.  A dozen or so students rehearsed Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead with a frustrated Professor Tilden from Oxford who looked like a female Henry Higgins ranting over twelve Eliza Doolittles.   Only a week before performing it for the locals.  Though almost to safety, he stopped running at the edge of the entryway, at the edge of the gesticulating shadows.  Gabriel turned, despite himself, and saw Elisa, clear under the moonlight not more than ten yards away, smiling and swinging a tire iron above her head in a circular fashion.  He swiveled back to the mansion and let out a deep loud cry that made Professor Tilden and her students jerk their heads from their scripts to search out the moonlit evening.

Part Five

            Professor Tilden’s mahogany desk sat heavy and mournful in the middle of her office like an ancient sarcophagus.  The room could have used a carpet to protect them from the cold hardwood floor.   The first movement of Brahms’ Piano Concerto no. 1 in D Minor meandered from a miniature RCA stereo and slowly filled the room.   Gabriel leaned against the desk and surveyed its surface, his head cocked to the left, as Professor Tilden click-clacked, click-clacked in her heels away from him towards the door.  Gabriel’s eyes roamed the neat hills and valleys of student bluebooks, four framed photographs of one Siamese cat, two leather cups filled neatly with pencils and pens, and three paper weights sitting on nothing but the polished wooden surface of the desk.   A small brass lamp saved the room from the dark night.  Click-clack, click-clack and Professor Tilden, breathing hard, stood before Gabriel.

“There, my dear,” she said.  “The door’s locked so we won’t be interrupted by a stray student who can’t sleep.”

She leaned into him and removed his glasses placing them on the desk.  Gabriel pulled her closer.  She smelled like cigarettes and strawberries.  As she tried to kiss him on the lips, Gabriel slid his face past hers and rested his chin on her shoulder and allowed his hands to start their job.  He closed his eyes and lifted Professor Tilden’s heavy shroud-like skirt and eased his right hand into the top of her panties and he imagined that his long fingers were five serpents slithering towards sanctuary in the moist soft earth.  Suddenly, Gabriel’s eyes popped open and he stared into other eyes -- by the door -- eyes that were masculine, stern and deep-set hovering over a straight nose and a handlebar mustache.  Gabriel squinted.   Seeing this pale countenance startled Gabriel but the late Viscount remained safely frozen on the canvas set in an ornate gilded frame.   Gabriel let out a heavy breath and he focused on the portrait.  Professor Tilden let out a moan.  And the Viscount’s eyes said to Gabriel: This is good, Professor Morales.  Finally, you have a woman who is your intellectual match, your equal, your age.  This is how it should be.  Gabriel shut his eyes tightly to stop the Viscount’s lecture.  “Elisa,” he moaned.

            Professor Tilden’s body became rigid under Gabriel’s hands.  She pulled back and shook her head slowly from side to side.   “What did you call me?” she said in a monotone.

            Gabriel cleared his throat and rubbed his fingers together.  “Sweetheart,” he gently whispered.  “I said ‘Elizabeth.’  Why do you ask?”

He moved closer to her and tried to caress her right breast.   And she let him.  Professor Tilden kept her eyes open and reached out to Gabriel’s hips and pulled him to her.  And she opened her mouth and this time Gabriel brought his mouth to hers and kissed her.  And then she stopped, suddenly, and let out a little shriek.

“Gabriel, there was someone in the window!”

            Gabriel swiveled to look but he only saw trees and bushes.  “Are you sure?” he said.  His hands grew wet and cold.  “Are you sure?”

            “Yes.”

            “Who was it?”

            “I don’t know.  A woman, I think.”

            Gabriel walked around the desk and leaned his face close to the cold window.  His breath formed a large circle of condensation making his search that much more difficult.  He squinted but without his glasses, he could discern very little.  Gabriel pulled the heavy curtains closed and turned to Professor Tilden.

            “It’s okay,” he said.  “It’s okay.”

Part Four

            “Gabe?”

            “Not ‘Gabe.’  Please.  I prefer ‘Gabriel.’”

            “Gabriel?”

            “Yes, Elisa.”

            “So, that’s it?”

            “Yes.”

            “No more?”

            “No more.”

            “Why?”

            “Mutability.”

            “Mutability?”

            “You know.  The ability to change.”

            “I know what ‘mutability’ means.”

            “‘A musical but melancholy chime….’”

            “Coleridge?”

            “No.  Wordsworth.”

            “Which sonnet?”

            “‘Mutability.’”

            “Oh.  Gabe?”

            “Not ‘Gabe.’  Please.  It’s ‘Gabriel.’”

            “Gabriel?”

            “Yes, Elisa.”

            “Fuck you.”

            “Now, now, Elisa.”

            “No, really.  Fuck you.”

Part Three

            “The functions of nature in Old and Middle English literature usually fall under one of two categories,” Gabriel intoned to the students as they sat scribbling away in their notebooks.  “First,” he said raising his right index finger into the air like it was a revolver, “nature may act as a gift from God for man to utilize and enjoy.”  He hated this stuff.  But he promised Professor Tilden that he would cover her so she could leave early to London and visit her sick father.  “This concept can be seen in ‘The Cuckoo Song’ and ‘Dream of the Rood.’”  He thanked God that he saved his notes from a survey course he taught in ’73 because Professor Tilden’s were impossible to understand on any level.  “The second function,” and his middle finger joined the index, “we see in ‘Battle of Maldon’ and ‘The Wanderer’ where nature appears to act in a malevolent manner so that the God-quality is not quite apparent.”

            Gabriel dropped his hand and let the students catch up with him.  He scanned the room looking for opportunities.  Suddenly, Gabriel’s visual research came to a halt when one of the dozen students shot an arm up like a mortar.  She kept her head down and kept on writing with her black hair veiling her face.   Before Gabriel could give permission, she stopped writing, head still down, and said, “But how can you compare these four works?   Each touches on a different subject.  They’re too different from each other to compare, don’t you agree?”

            Gabriel felt blood rise into his face as he prepared to put this student in her place but he stopped as she finally lifted her head from her notebook.  She was exquisite.  Gabriel caught his breath and coughed.  He walked to her.

            “And your name is?”  He tried to sound nonchalant.

            “Elisa, Professor Morales,” she answered.

            “Elisa,” Gabriel said allowing the sound of her name to fill his mind.  “Elisa, you make a good point though I’m not certain that I fully agree.  But why don’t you explain your position a bit more.”  He walked back to his desk and sat down with a loud squeak.

            Elisa looked around at her expectant classmates and then back to Gabriel.  “Well,” she began, “take ‘The Cuckoo Song’ for instance.  There, God’s gifts are praised.”

            “Go on,” said Gabriel intrigued by this beautiful student.

            “And in ‘The Dream of the Rood,’ Christ’s agony on the cross is revealed to a dreamer.  Then you mentioned ‘The Battle of Maldon.’  That’s a historical piece.  You know.  A battle between the Vikings and the British.”

            Gabriel smiled.  “And what about ‘The Wanderer’?”

            Elisa’s brown eyes opened wide and she lifted her pencil straight into the air.  “Well, there, some lonely guy relates his lament.  So you see, how can you compare the interpretation of nature in any of these when they’re so different in subject?”

            Gabriel opened the desk drawer and rummaged around for a moment.  He then pulled out a rubber band and a paper clip.  He held them up, one in each hand.  The entire class focused on him.  “Elisa,” he said gently.  “Can you compare these to each other?”

            Elisa blushed and looked around the classroom.  The other students turned to her in unison.  “What do you mean?” she finally asked.

            “Can you compare this paper clip to this rubber band?”

            “Well, if I tried, yes, I think I could.”

            “Try.  For me.”

            Elisa coughed.  “Okay.  They both hold things together.”

            Gabriel remained motionless with his arms frozen in midair.  “Go on.  How are they different from each other?”

            “One is soft and the other rigid.  One is dull, the other shiny.”  Elisa’s eyes watered a little.

            “Ah,” said Gabriel dropping the objects on the desk.  “Sometimes comparing different things can make those things clearer in our minds.  Don’t you think?”

            Elisa cleared her throat.  “Yes.”

            Gabriel looked at his watch.  “Class over.  It’s been a great deal of fun.  But Professor Tilden comes back Friday.”

            A groan emitted from the students except Elisa.  Then shuffling, bantering and laughter filled the small room.   Elisa slowly walked up to Gabriel as the other students walked past her.  A young man whispered to her as they headed in different directions, “Way to go, Elisa.”  She winced but kept her eyes trained on Gabriel as she approached him.  Gabriel sat at his desk pulling his notes together and trying not to look up.

When the room was almost empty, Elisa said, “I enjoyed your lecture.”

Gabriel lifted his head slowly.  She stood close enough for him to smell her perfume.  “I wasn’t trying to be cruel, you know.”

Elisa smiled.  “I know.  You were right.   It was a good response to my question.”

“But you did have a point.  Really.  You’re not completely off track.”  Gabriel snapped his battered leather briefcase closed and stood up not more than two feet from her.  There was a momentary silence.  “Elisa?”

“Yes?”

“Care to grab a drink?”

Elisa’s left eye twitched.  She looked around the room.  It was at the farthest end of the mansion, away from the rooms that had been converted into bedrooms for the students and the Stanford faculty.  The British faculty stayed in their own homes in London and commuted to Cliveden as necessary.  The ancient heating system clicked repeatedly and the afternoon chill stubbornly hovered in the air.  Elisa put her hand on her eye to cover up the twitch but Gabriel already noticed it.

“Sure,” she said.

“I have some very nice sherry in my room,” ventured Gabriel.  His groin grew warm as he made this suggestion.  He inched a bit closer to her.

Elisa turned to him.  “Okay.  Right now?”

“Why not?”

She did not answer but, instead, turned on her heel and walked towards the door.  Gabriel followed swinging his briefcase back and forth by his side.

Part Two

            Professor Masterson rubbed his sweaty palms on the sides of his well-worn brown corduroy trousers before raising his plump short-fingered hands up in the air and moving them as if he were playing patty-cake with an invisible friend.  “Please, students, please.  We must begin.”  His red little beak of a nose barely held his reading glasses in place and his sparse white fringe of hair flew out in various directions and looked in danger of leaving his head altogether in the very near future.  “Please, we must begin.”

            The eighty students slowly began to find places to position themselves.  The cavernous cold room began at one end with a gargantuan mouth of a fireplace and ended at the winding stairway leading up to the students’ quarters.  Some sat on the floor while others perched in two-hundred-year-old chairs and couches while still others remained standing along the walls by the tapestries and armor.  Professor Masterson reached down to a student who found a comfortable seat by the fireplace and snatched a small piece of stationery from her.

            “Students,” Professor Masterson finally said, “welcome to Stanford University’s overseas studies program in Britain.  You should each have one of these,” and he held up the paper dated March 7, 1980.

            There was a rustling sound and some laughter but each student dutifully found his or her own miniature letter.

            “Do not lose this!” said Professor Masterson shaking the letter in a trembling hand for emphasis.  “This certifies your participation in the program.  And please note the last paragraph:  ‘In the event that this student leaves behind unmet financial obligations in Britain, Stanford University will cover those debts and take full responsibility for collection from the student.’”

            This evoked great laughter.  Professor Masterson did not smile.  He handed the note back to the student and cleared his throat while shoving his hands into his pockets.  “This is not a license to run up bills that you cannot meet.  Do not disappoint us or your parents.”

            “Can I buy you a drink?” shouted one of the male students to great laughter.

            Professor Masterson shook his head.  “Please, I only have a few things to say and I’d like to introduce the faculty for this quarter.”

            The room finally grew quiet.  “Most of you are majoring in English,” he began.  “But this is a wonderful program for any major.  You will be living here, in this mansion, simply known as Cliveden in Buckinghamshire.  George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham, erected the first version of the mansion in the late 1600s.  Part of its allure is that it stands above the Thames.  Cliveden was – and is -- known for its magnificent gardens.   Before having his architect start any blueprints, the Duke planted woods and laid out gardens on the previously barren chalk cliff-tops.  In the last three hundred years, Cliveden survived a devastating fire and flourished through numerous redesigns and enlargements at the hands of various earls and lords.  The 2nd Viscount Astor finally, in 1942, donated it to the National Trust but Cliveden remained the home of the family until his son's death in 1966.   The Viscount wished that Cliveden would be used to ‘bring about a better understanding between the English-speaking peoples.’  So, since 1969, Stanford leased it from the National Trust throughout the academic year to house eighty or so students each quarter.”

            After he finished his little speech, one that he had given countless times, Professor Masterson turned to the faculty members who stood quietly by one of the large windows near the entryway.  He pointed to them and said, “We have assembled a fine group of professors from both Stanford and Oxford.  They are, from my right, Professors Elizabeth Tilden, Howard Deeker and James Spencer-Hall from Oxford and Professors Gabriel Morales, Robert Hendricks and Gail Linnerson from Stanford.”   The professors took a little bow when his or her name was announced.  “Professor Morales has been here longest now for, how long, Gabriel?”

            “Five years.”

            “Yes.  Five years.   He started teaching at Stanford fifteen years ago as a young untenured instructor.  He was one of my students as an undergrad.”

            “Was I ever that young?” asked Gabriel to laughter.

            “We were all young once, eh, Gabe?”  Professor Masterson continued:  “And our newest members are Professor Hendricks and Professor Tilden.”   They each nodded.  Professor Tilden glanced at Gabriel but he kept his eyes trained on the students.

            Professor Masterson wiped his brow with a handkerchief though the room remained chilly despite the presence of eighty students.  He pointed to the large table at the far end of the room by the staircase.  It groaned with bottles of wine and platters of cheese and crackers and cold sliced beef.  “We have a nice little treat to begin your stay here.  So, I’m done with my introductions.  Please partake in this fine repast.”

            The students cheered and noisily made their way to the food.

            “Yes,” said Professor Masterson, “this should be a wonderful quarter.”

            The professors hung back for a few minutes until the hungry group of students slowly dispersed throughout the room with their wine and food.

            Professor Masterson looked at the students with great pride.  “A wonderful quarter,” he said again to no one in particular as he shuffled towards the table for a drink.

Part One

            “Mi cielo, come here,” she said.  Her dress pulled tightly on her ample breasts and hips.  The noise made by a jumble of jangling silver bracelets on both her wrists frightened Gabriel.  “Come to your tía and give her a big hug!”

            Gabriel’s mother nudged him.  “Mi hijo, give your tía a big abrazo.  Go on, mi hijo!”

            Gabriel moved slowly towards his aunt.  He had already perspired so much that his new white shirt, bought especially for his ninth birthday, nearly dripped in the late May heat.  Numerous relatives and friends filled the backyard.  Some even traveled to Los Angeles from other cities like San Diego and Bakersfield.  Though World War II ended two years ago, a few of the young men still wore their uniforms, sharp and clean and handsome.  This was a special day.  Not only did Gabriel turn nine, but his older sister, Estella, was graduating from St. Agnes High School and had a wonderful job lined up as a secretary at the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios.   Estella’s English was nothing less than perfect and she could type eighty-five words a minute.  Gabriel’s parents could not have asked for more.  So, they planned this huge pachanga and everyone who had any connection to either the Morales or Soto side of the family got an invitation.

            Gabriel found his way through the partygoers and finally reached his aunt.  She threw her arms open and pulled him close.  She whispered into his ear, “How’s my big man?”  Her breath smelled like beer and her bracelets dug into Gabriel’s shoulders as she hugged him tighter and tighter.  “Show me your room, mi cielo.  I want to see where my big man lives.”

            Gabriel led his aunt into the house -- though she already knew her way -- through the kitchen and living room, which was filled with laughter and smoke and Glenn Miller.  They reached his room and went in.  She closed the heavy wooden door and suddenly near silence descended on them with a click of the lock.  The party disappeared.  Gabriel sat on his bed and his aunt walked over to his bookshelves.  She let her hard red nails slide across the books’ bindings making a muffled clicking sound.  Twain, Cather, Scott and Carroll.

            “Do you read all these books?” she asked genuinely impressed.

            “Yes, tía.”  Gabriel shifted and the bed let out a creak.

            She turned and said, “No more ‘tía.’  It makes me feel old.  Please.  You can call me by my name.  You know my name, don’t you, mi cielo?”

            “Yes, tía.”

            “Then use it, mi cielo.”

            “Okay.  Graciela.”

            “It sounds beautiful coming from you.”  She pulled a pack of cigarettes from her purse and quickly lit it with a silver lighter.  Her wet narrow eyes searched the small but neat room for a makeshift ashtray.  All she could find was a miniature ceramic sombrero with the name OLVERA STREET, USA painted in red block letters on the upturned brim.  Without asking permission, she picked it up, flipped it over and flicked a little ash in it.  Gabriel almost let out a yelp but he kept still.  His tía frightened him.  She walked over to the bed and sat next to Gabriel making the mattress sag.  Gabriel tried his best not to fall into his aunt but he failed and she caught him with her left arm and hugged him tightly pulling his face into her ample chest.

            “Oh, mi cielo, I love you so much!  You’re such a little man.  You’re going to break a lot of hearts some day.”  She finally released Gabriel and he scrambled to higher ground at the other end of the mattress.

            She took a long drag on her cigarette and let the white smoke drip from her nostrils and mouth.  She looked like a ferocious medieval monster to Gabriel.  She glanced at him, smiled and smashed her cigarette into a little ball in the ceramic sombrero.  It made a sizzling sound.  “Come here,” she said.  “Stand up and come over here,” and she pointed to a spot immediately in front of her knees.

            Gabriel complied.  She looked him over from the top of his head to his shiny black shoes.  “So handsome,” she said softly.  She removed some lint from his shoulder and then smoothed the front of his moist shirt moving slowly down his chest and stomach towards his belt buckle.  Gabriel closed his eyes and tried to swallow but his mouth felt dry as burlap.  “So handsome,” she said again.  Gabriel shut his eyes tighter and he felt his belt loosen and then heard his pants unzip.  “So handsome.”

            Gabriel’s mind fell back into an abyss.  It flew down deep into darkness, far into embarrassment and powerlessness.  To a place he had visited too often.  So often that he couldn’t remember when he started going there.  But Gabriel didn’t want to go to that place again.  This time, drawing on all the strength in his little body, he willed himself up into a different place.  To a place safe and near a beautiful river like a picture he saw in one of his books.  Lush with thick verdant trees, bushes and grass on both banks and the river making a calm and constant rushing sound.  And the harder he breathed, the more he became lost in the wet clean smell of that new safe place.  A place all his own.  A place far from others.