Andrew J. Lederer

That's what my friend Elise may be creating by running water on the life-depleting crystal a charlatan healer gave her long ago.

She's transfixed by it; can't take her eyes of it even as it destroys her. She's babbling. Seems to think it's clearer now.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

She was holding it over my head so it will leave me empty and despairing just as it left her that way.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH . . . . . . . . . .

She held it front of my eyes!!!!

She says it's changed in the time she's had it.

And the freneticism of the tussle between her embrace of primitive superstition and my rejection of this naturo-mystic implement has suddenly ended. Elise is curled up in a corner of her futon, silently staring.

There's nothing I can do to save her. I must save myself.