Outside the post office a woman asked me for money. I can see heroine a million miles away now. I don't know why it looks different than everything else, but it does. It's utterly obvious. Before C was dying of it, I used to give money to people who asked me, without caring what they spent it on, without a social conscience about The Problem, just wanting to alleviate the personal guilt around Have and Have Not. I'm not claiming to have grown a social conscience about it now either, but what I can't do now is be near it. I can't even look at it without waves of illness trying to smother me. I can barely stay standing. I tried to keep breathing, keep moving forward. Little J asked me why the woman was so "pallid". What kind of twelve year old talks like this? I'm glad she doesn't know the answer.





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