Patina and the spiritual war between love and pride

Patina and the Fallen Angels

CHAPTER FIVE: RHESUS NEGATIVE IS A FORM OF CLAUSTROPHOBIA.

The diverse events and topics of conversation, which took place during their day at the zoo, were woven like a tapestry into a vivid and elaborate dream Patina had that very same night:

She found herself dressed in a toga like a vestal virgin.

She was standing at the altar in the circular stone temple of the goddess Vesta. The altar was a solid slab of granite. It was shaped and dimensioned like a coffin, and it was covered with flowers.

The temple was a cool and tranquil place where the outside world could never intrude, and this made it just perfect for meditation and spiritual contemplation. It was serenely quiet; a place that lent itself perfectly to whispered mystical utterances and religious incantations.

"Souls are mystic temples," she said, "and what takes place within their sanctified walls must always remain the profound and esoteric secret, which can only be known to the inner circle of the high priestess and her custodians."

She raised a chalice of solid gold as an offering to the Gods, and began to chant in a strange and mystical language. But the incantation’s proper sequence was disrupted when a noxious distraction began to pull and tug and draw her away and out of her meditative frame of mind.

Her senses thus arrested were forcibly brought back and refocused upon the crude reality of the outside world, and with this came the sudden realization and identification of the nature of the disturbance. It was the all-encompassing intrusive sound of a great explosion, which had desecrated this most holy of rituals.

"Who would dare to violate the sanctity of the temple of Vesta!" she said, in a tone of outraged indignation.

To further disrupt these sacred proceedings-- if that was even possible now--Merlin violated a strictly prohibited taboo by entering the temple through the main door, which had been strictly dedicated to ritual usage only, and he came inside panting and sweating and walking quickly. He was wearing his long dark-blue robe and wizard's pointed hat all festooned with stars and moons.

"They're here!" he said, momentarily catching his breath. "Those pirates are back again. They've dragged a siege gun all the way from the coast, all of twenty miles through the jungle."

Another explosion was detonated just as he had finished saying those words.

With her toga flowing behind her, Patina walked quickly out of the temple and onto the high rampart walls of a fortress castle of supernaturally massive proportions. There was a cold breeze blowing, which caused her to wrap her arms around her shoulders in a self-hugging action to momentarily brace herself against the cold.

Through a large pair of binoculars mounted on a turret--like those atop the Empire State Building--she looked down to the jungle floor a thousand feet below to see a disorderly bunch of pirates messing about with a cannon of heavy caliber.

From what she could see at that distance, they appeared to be mostly pushing, shoving and fighting one another. Then a third shot was fired--was fired at walls, which, unbeknown to the pirates, were one-hundred-and-sixty-six feet thick at the base.

The gun made a great deal of noise but without causing any damage whatsoever. Tina could not even feel vibrations through her feet, because the castle was simply too massive to allow that to happen.

"You wish!" she shouted, defiantly shaking her fist. "You can just keep on wishing."

"Just look at that riff raff down there," said Merlin, who was now standing beside her, "they are poised to pillage and plunder. And look, they are shaking their fists at me in particular. They threaten and hurl foul insults--they call me the dark demon. They are the vile, low-life, scum of the earth! Why do they keep coming here?"

"They must have heard rumors," she said. "They must have heard about the priceless patina--the treasure of gold that lies hidden within these mighty fortress walls."

"Where would they have heard about that?" asked Merlin, in a pointed and vaguely inquisitorial tone.

"How the hell should I know!" she snapped, angrily. "But your question is academic, because they shan't penetrate this deep and mighty fortress in any case, not in a million years."

From about this point on, there was an explosion a minute for about fifteen minutes, and then all was silent.

"I think they have used up all their gunpowder," said Tina, looking through her binoculars, and feeling comfortably safe and secure once more.

But it was just as she had spoken those last words that she noticed what looked like hundreds of small furry animals lined up in columns. With the signaling of a semaphore, these small creatures began to climb the fortress walls at every different point along its perimeter.

They were climbing steadily with speed and skill and were scaling the walls with apparent ease. There were so many of them they looked just like fleas on a dog's back.

When they had reached a point about halfway up the precipitous castle wall, she could tell they were macaques. In what seemed like no time at all, some of the strongest and most skilful climbers had reached the summit. Patina then noticed two of the leaders had string tied around their waists.

On reaching the summit, these leaders began hauling on that string, which happened to be tied to a thicker and stronger length of string. That stronger string, in turn, was tied to a rope, which, in turn, was tied to a rope ladder.

As the load grew heavier, more and more monkeys fell in behind to join the line and help pull, in a tug of war fashion. Their combined weight and muscle lent a force of considerable power to the task at hand. Finally they had mounted a rope ladder securely over one of the castle's turrets.

"The pirates will come up that ladder." Said Tina, and she rushed over to chase the macaques away. "Go way!" She shouted, flicking her arms out at them in a shooing motion.

But the monkeys were not a bit scared of her. They stood their ground and bared their sharp canine teeth at her. She grimaced and recoiled in fear. She then ran back to the binoculars and was able to see a pirate already halfway up the ladder. But he didn't look like a typical pirate, because he wasn't ugly or brutish. He was actually quite handsome in a boyish kind of way, and he looked every bit as wholesome as the archetypal clean-cut college-boy. He even looked familiar. Then, all of a sudden, she recognized him: it was Paul.

"Who told the pirates about the treasure?" asked Merlin, rhetorically. "It was the fifth column who told them--the enemy from within. I've been finding these paper airplanes in the jungle for some time now with messages written on them; here are four of them to serve as a smattering sample and an indication of just how absurdly stupid the messages are: "Help me", "save me"--from what? And look at this one: "lonely single-white-female seeks handsome college boy'. And this one's the best of all: A newspaper clipping about the varsity theatre and half-price tickets to a festival of Michael Caine movies."

"I don't know anything about that." said Tina, innocently.

"My God! Have you any idea of what's about to come down now? I told you not to ask him for anything."

"But I didn't!" she protested, in a tone of all-abused innocence.

"Yes you did--you pulled a fast one with that newspaper clipping, and now he, by the laws of reciprocity, has pulled a fast one on you. Don't you understand: he answered your phone to get himself an invitation to meet your folks, then he would use that against you as leverage to obligate you to reciprocate by meeting his folks. Ostensibly, it would be tit for tat, and only fair. But don’t you see that it was sleight of hand: it wasn't tit for tat at all, it was two tats, and they were both his. He is slick, he is good, he is a smooth con man, and he could make you believe butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. I warned you, didn’t I?"

"But I don't remember ever showing him a newspaper clipping." she protested, feebly.

"You have no idea of what's about to come down now, do you?

And you have no idea of where this guy is coming from, even though I’ve warned you repeatedly. Well, let me spell it out for you, let me tell you just what he’s about: A dependence that clings to exclusive devotion, a friendship with strings seen as love's pure emotion, a status promotion, a halo and wings; these are a few of his favorite things."

"But what can you do to help me now?" she cried.

"I can't do anything to help you. If you ignore all my advice, then you must pay the price."

Tina ran back to the temple and, ignoring the taboo against using the entrance reserved only for ceremonies and rituals, she closed its enormous double doors behind her and leaned back against them with all her weight for a brief moment. But the doors were not fitted with locks, and so she quickly came to the conclusion that such an attempt at barring the ingress of almost anyone or anything would be futile.

"Would they violate this sanctified place?" she thought. Patina was horrified. She looked for a place to hide. "Would they commit the unforgivable trespass and enter the inner sanctum?" If she couldn't be safe here, she couldn't be safe anywhere. "No place to hide." she thought. "What can I do? What do I do now?"

The door then opened once more and Paul poked his head through. "Don't worry, my sugar-plum-valentine, my little sugar dumpling, I'm here to save you!" he shouted, in a corny, melodramatic tone of voice.

"Oh, you sneaky snake!" she shouted, angrily. "You answered my phone!"

"Don't worry. You'll never be lonely again--or alone for that matter!" he shouted, totally ignoring her words, her mood, her objections and her adverse attitude.

"From now till eternity, you will see my loving face staring at you across the breakfast table. And you can depend on it right until death us do part, because I'm your little old clinging vine and I’ll never let you go."

Patina let out a blood-curdling scream. She then turned and opened the door of the temple's back entrance, passed through it and ran as fast as she could down the main corridor.

"GET HER!" screamed Paul, in a tone of voice that had now changed from saccharin sweet to threateningly vindictive. That change had come about in less than an instant, along with a simultaneous change in his personality.

The macaques were apparently under Paul’s total control, and an entire horde of them had set after her immediately upon hearing his order to do so. They ran with a furious speed and were rapidly gaining ground on her.

She looked back over her shoulder and noticed a small detachment of the monkeys carrying what looked like a big sheet of canvas, which they would presumably use to catch her in. As she put her hand on the knob of the door of her intended avenue of escape, the hands of half a dozen monkeys took a firm hold of her by her arms and legs and clothing. She then knew she was well and truly trapped and caught.

"Oh please don't wrap me up!" she cried, staring with intense phobic terror into the monkey’s faces and pleading with them--her tone of voice was abjectly pitiful. "Please don't wrap me up! I’LL DIE! I’LL DIE! If you wrap me up I won't be able to breathe! I really mean it! It will really and truly kill me for sure! Don't you understand?"

But the monkeys appeared not to understand her at all. They ignored her words and seemed totally oblivious to her obvious and dire state of distress. They laid the sheet down on the floor and her on top of it. She then noticed it was coated in a thick and extremely sticky substance--it was like a gigantic sheet of flypaper. She felt the horrible stickiness against her bare arms and then her face as the macaques began to roll her up in it like a cigar. This caused her to scream uncontrollably until she succumbed to a rabid epileptic foaming at the mouth. She then began to thrash about in a claustrophobic frenzy; but, like a Chinese finger puzzle, this only made matters worse--she became more and more hopelessly trapped and entangled the more she tried to thrash about.

She then sat up suddenly and found herself in bed at home and wide a-wake, but still screaming. Familiar objects in her bedroom were made reassuringly visible to her by the pale light of early morning, but she felt an immediate need to get out of bed.

"Oh, what a relief! Thank God, it was just another nightmare." she thought.

Her nightmare had been accompanied by an intense night sweat, which had left her all soaking wet and sticky. This produced a dreadful discomfort, which could only be remedied by changing her pajamas.

The relief she then felt was immediate and considerable, yet it was not long lasting, because a disquieting thought soon reentered her consciousness: what was she going to do to keep Him away from her?

But why would she want to do that? She wanted his conversation and his kisses too. Yes, but not if it was going to make her feel like this. But what was he going to do to her that should make her feel so anxious?

He now seemed very much like a sneaky snake who was trying to play games of ensnarement with her, and yet he had immediately retracted the invitation to meet his folks as soon as he saw how it upset her--and that would indicate it was not of any great or overriding importance to him.

If he were dangerously domineering or manipulative, she would have expected him to really push the issue and not take ‘no’ for an answer. But he is gentle and sensitive--hardly the type to trap her like a wild animal in a cage. Was she going paranoid to even be thinking such things?

He had always seemed so meek and mild in her estimation, but might he not do something subsequently that was out of character, that was maybe even crazy and reckless? How would she be able to get away from him then?

What if he wanted to become closely involved with her? But she had asked him for nothing, so he was not entitled to expect anything from her in return, because that would be unfair.

And what could he possibly do that was so terrible or terrifying? She couldn't rightly say--and that was the worst part of it: it was a nameless terror, and yet it was an anxiety so insidious that it now permeated and spoiled everything.

It had been triggered off by him and was maintained by him--but what was so frightening about him? He seemed almost absurdly harmless. He was one of the archetypal boy-scouts who wouldn't say ‘shit’ for a shilling.

But what if he got serious. He might ask her to marry him. Couldn't she simply say "thanks but no thanks"? Yes, of course, but that wasn't exactly it. It was something else, something intangible but something sinister.

Paul saw Patina walking to school. She had barely a quarter mile to go before she would enter the campus grounds. He spied her from the high vantage of the window of his bus as it sped past her. He decided he should walk back to meet her.

They were not having a class together that next hour, so he could enjoy her company for only the short time it would take to walk a hundred yards or so; after that, their paths would diverge once more.

It was hardly necessary for him to make such a gesture, I suppose--and perhaps it was a mere courtesy, or perhaps it was habit; or perhaps he just thought it would be nice to see her, greet her and say a few brief words to her by way of small talk.

There was no need of necessity in any case to govern or even play a role in the interaction between himself and his number-one, constant companion, friend and lover.

"Hi!" he said, smiling pleasantly.

"Are you going home?" she asked, in an uncharacteristically loud and sarcastic tone of voice, after having failed to return his greeting.

"No, I walked back to meet you." he said, sheepishly and in a tone of mild-mannered protest that gave only the subtlest indication of his hurt feelings.

They walked an awkward hundred yards together in virtual silence. Upon reaching Tina's classroom, he said: "I'll see you in our 10:00 a.m. class." His tone of voice was polite and pleasant.

"See yuh!" was all she said by way of reply, and Paul felt she said it in a deliberately cold, abrupt and affectedly indifferent tone of voice. He had never ever heard her say "see yuh" before, either in a friendly or any other tone of voice.

Paul's rejection paranoia made him acutely sensitive to any problems that might threaten his relationship with Patina. Even latent or imagined problems gave him sufficient cause for concern, but the events of the previous evening had given him something dangerously real to trouble himself with.

He had sufficient reason already to be worried on that score, but the events of this morning were now causing him to become almost desperately worried.

"I shouldn't have bloody well told her I spent ten years in a slum--goddamn it! What was I thinking! I just had such an impulse to be honest, open and candid with her--as she is with me . . . and what do I get in return for adopting the supposed best policy.

She probably thinks I'm a real loser and a dead-beat. She disapproves of me, finds fault . . . sits in judgement. Honesty is like a luxury that she alone can afford. It's a double standard!

She is forever revealing all of the crazy events of her disturbed childhood, and she does it all gratuitously, because I never ask her questions about her personal life . . . the funny thing is, if I did start asking her personal questions, I reckon she'd shut up tighter than a clam.

She's a funny one. I always found her stories about being abused by her parents hard to believe. I found them especially hard to believe, because I know how adults feel about gifted children. When I took Karen to the special school for her one orientation day, they treated her just like a little princess.

It just isn’t natural for parents to abuse a gifted child of their very own. That's what never made any sense to me, but now I've met Tina's mom--she's a strange one--I wouldn't put anything past her.

But, either way, I'm likely to lose: if Patina is lying about something like that, it means she is probably crazy; if she is not lying, it probably means she is just as crazy.

And she expects me to accept her like that simply because she's rich. Money gives her idiosyncrasy credits, but I'm poor, so I can just be judged and disapproved of, and to whatever extent she arbitrarily deems appropriate."

In class later that day, Tina presented a distracted aloofness which Paul could not help but notice. She seemed so distant, and her conversation was scanty and devoid of its usual zest. The intensity of Paul's rejection paranoia was increased another notch.

He now felt much like an investor who was really far too nervous to risk money in any part of the stock market, but who had purchased a large quantity of the most speculative stocks in the futures market. His mood was inextricably linked to the day to day price of his stocks: a rise in the price would bring on the euphoric expectation of great and unearned wealth, while a fall in price would lead to the terrifying prospect of utter ruin and perhaps a leap from a tall building--the way they did it back in 1929.

But a decline in her mood would also increase Paul's IQ --his Ingratiation Quotient. Without resorting to false flattery, he would endeavor to say things that were true but of a complimentary nature. That was the easiest thing in the world for him to do in any case, because there were just so many things about her, which he genuinely liked and admired.

On their way to the library after class, he said: "I really like those little white boots of yours--they have such a special stylish look about them."

"Well, they ought to," she replied, petulantly, "seeing they came all the way from Mexico."

Paul felt like he had been slapped in the face, but he wasn't as yet deterred from his efforts. "Gee, you look great in slacks." he said--to which there was no nasty retort, because she needed that kind of support. It had stopped her dead in her tracks.

She always wore long pants because she was extremely self-conscious about her legs, which did not meet with the approval of her pride. Her legs were rated second worst of all her physical attributes.

His remark had stopped her petulance dead in its tracks. For the moment at least she was pleasant enough in that her caustic sarcasm was totally absent, but she was still quiet, distant and constrained.

It was as if she couldn't bear to be nasty to him right then; but, after a few short minutes, she took her leave of him, saying she had an assignment due and was unable to accompany him to lunch.

Paul simply didn't believe her. She had a subsequent excuse every day of that week, and she was saying "see yuh" at every apparent opportunity. The words said "see you later", but her tone of voice said "piss off you asshole", and the emotive content grew more intense and more explicit until it was simply unmistakable:

An obtrusive stare so full of guile,

A glint of gloat in her eye,

A sarcastic "see yuh" and a perverse smile

As her fingers wiggled "goodbye".

Paul's rejection paranoia had by now assumed the size and substance of a Saturn rocket, and it was waiting for countdown and preparing for blast off. It was also causing him considerable distress.

He was hoping and planning to save the situation by taking a direct course of action: He would go to her place late that afternoon and set the cat among the pigeons by discussing the problem with her in a forthright fashion.

Upon approaching her house to a distance of 150 yards or so, Paul thought he saw a car exit her driveway. It was right at this point that his rejection paranoia took off straight through the stratosphere and headed into outer space.

He experienced such a fearful sense of abandonment, the like of which he had never known before at any time in his whole life.

He was not even sure if the car had actually exited her driveway in any case or whether it had exited the side street right next to her place; parallax error made it virtually impossible to differentiate between the two at that distance.

He was shaken up quite badly by the experience, but after taking a moment to re-appraise the situation, decided he should still go in and talk to her.

He was nervous enough to cough just before he knocked on her door. She answered promptly. She said ‘Hi’ and invited him in, which he found reassuring, and which raised his hopes a fraction; but after a few rambling words about his not having seen her at lunch, he sensed a growing tension and uneasiness in the room. He felt unwelcome, he felt embarrassed.

"I guess I came here uninvited." he said, in a tone verging on self-pity.

"That's okay." she replied, in a slightly more friendly tone. "You can stay . . . for a while."

"I wanted to ask you--" he was now really ready to up-the- ante-- "I wanted to ask you whether you want to be my girl?"

"Gosh!" she exclaimed. "I really don't want to go steady with anybody. I have three other boyfriends in any case and it wouldn't be fair to them if I were to go steady with just one."

Paul was flabbergasted to the point of feeling disorientated, and yet he didn't believe what she was telling him now any more than he believed she was too busy to have lunch with him all that week.

He tried to pull himself together by saying exactly what was on his mind: "I'm sorry, and I don't mean to offend you or insult you, but I just don't believe you."

"Well, I've got letters from them. I guess I could show them to you if you really want to read them." She went to her desk, sorted through some papers and came back with two letters and a postcard.

The first letter was from Florida, from Brian. Paul perused the letters with nervous, sweaty hands. The second letter was from Minnesota--from her philosophy teacher.

The postcard was from Japan; was sent by an Australian married man, who was told by his wife that he could go out with other women if he wished.

"I must apologize," said Paul, somberly, "for not believing you. I was way out of line."

"That's okay," she said, sympathetically, "I shouldn't have hit you with so much all at once."

Paul then went to sit on the couch next to Patina, who was not now in her usual, casual sit-on-the-floor mode or mood. In an effort to seek reassurance he moved his head toward her in order to kiss her. She, in turn, moved her head as far to the opposite side as she could to effectively prevent this.

The look on her face was colder than charity, was frigid, as hard as marble, hostile and defiant. It was a powerful slap in the face for Paul and it left him feeling utterly rejected and defeated. He politely and timidly took his leave, with his tail figuratively tucked between his legs.

He took off trudging despondently up the hill. It was not the same hill now, because, like everything else, it had somehow changed completely. His scintillating world of wonder and enchantment now lay in ruin, was now scorched and blackened by fire, pestilence and gloom; and all it took to bring about this transformation was a change in her attitude toward him. That's all it took.

Paul was thunderstruck by the sheer force and simplicity of the logic: "She now has it in her power to determine whether I will be happy or unhappy, or whether my life will ever be worth a damn again. She has total power over me to do me good or ill. My life and happiness depends upon her attitude toward me--just as a helpless baby depends on its mother.

I have lost my self--Goddamn it! How could something like this just happen? How could something like this just sneak up on me and ensnare me without as much as an inkling of a warning. And now it's too late. How could I walk right into something like this with all faculties functioning?"

Paul had never been aware previously of being dependent on anyone in this kind of relationship. But he couldn't help but see it now. It was absolutely true: he was dependent--and he had learned something new about himself; had located another piece of the puzzle that was Paul.

The following day, Paul found Patina in the library. She was working and seated at a study desk. It may have been the residual force of his usual habit of associating and interacting with her, or perhaps the inertial force of his more-deeply ingrained habit of ingratiation that prompted him now to make another friendly approach toward her.

He didn't assume the usual intimacy of getting right down close beside her with his knees on the carpet and resting his elbows on her desk, because he felt such a degree of familiarity would be inappropriate under the present inauspicious circumstances.

Instead, he remained standing about two feet from her desk, which caused his head to be situated a good two feet above hers, and this had the further consequence of enabling her to look up into his mouth at an angle of about forty-five degrees.

His initial feeling of insecurity caused his opening words to be nervously tentative. Patina's face at this point conveyed an enacted, almost theatrical kind of boredom and indifference in response to Paul’s attempted overture.

But, after a short minute or so, Paul noticed she had begun to stare intently and continued to do so while she positioned her head, way down as low as she could go, so that her right cheek was virtually resting upon the desk. Paul had a small black spot of decay on his second, left incisor tooth, of which he was painfully self-conscious, and upon which she was now zeroed-in like a bulls eye target. It is doubtful whether this maneuver would actually improve her view over what it had already been, but it had a devastating effect on Paul, and that was perhaps its sole or primary purpose.

She had never previously stared or even given any indication of having noticed the carious spot before, let alone had she deliberately attempted to cause him self-conscious pain and embarrassment.

But her eyes were now staring as pointedly as sharp daggers that were mercilessly cutting right into him, and written on her face was an apparent expression of sadistic glee.

Paul was mortified to the point where he almost collapsed. He felt like he had just been pole axed. He tried very hard to retain his composure by pretending nothing had happened, but he feared he was ready to dissolve or come apart at the seams.

He spoke a few more meaningless words of small talk, then politely took his leave.

"See yuh!" she said, sarcastically.

He had taken his leave of her to escape the acute intensity of a pain he felt was tantamount to aversion therapy. He was so shocked and unsettled, he had to sit down so he wouldn't faint or fall over. He felt thoroughly crushed and broken. He felt dejected and defeated, and he was growing desperate.

"This is no bloody good at all," he thought. "My increasing efforts are in vain; worse than that, they are counterproductive."

Ingratiation, his old friend tried and true, was now failing him totally, and failing him like it had never failed before. It had now actually become a great deal worse than useless, because she appeared to be feeding on it like a hungry vampire.

"I'm going to have to do something different and soon, or I'll lose her for sure. I had better attempt a 180-degree turnabout."

He arrived at their next class a little earlier than usual with the specific intention of looking for another girl to sit with. He didn’t see one in particular but there were two girls sitting together who would serve the purpose admirably, because he knew them from his freshman year. They were friendly extroverts and eminently approachable. Paul did just that--he took a seat and began a conversation.

They accepted him immediately. They allowed him to make their duo a trio, he seemed to fit right in, and the conversation prattled along in a relaxed and effortless fashion--this would allow him to keep one eye on Patina when she entered the classroom.

The lecturer had sorted through his notes and was on the brink of beginning his address, but Patina was not as yet in attendance.

"I reckon she's outside waiting for me. Would you believe that--her waiting for me? That would be quite a role reversal, wouldn't it?"

It was not until after the lesson had started that Patina finally made her way inside. She was moving slowly and cautiously down the lecture theater's terraced steps. She was facing into the seats and walking sideways--crab fashion. While carefully eyeing the floor, she would cautiously position her right foot before dragging her left foot across and level with her right. This made it look as if her left leg was lame.

On seeing Paul sitting with two young ladies, Patina was visibly upset and shaken to the point of disorientation. She clumsily grabbed the edge of aisle seats in order to steady herself. Her footing seemed as unsteady and insecure as she herself appeared. She was as wide-eyed as little Bo Peep who had lost her sheep, yet Tina looked more like a little lost lamb, or like Cinderella bereft of her fairy godmother. She looked like one of the walking wounded and that was so powerfully apropos. Her face was a heart-rending sight; it conveyed all of the fearful insecurity of the archetypal shrinking violet. She came down about six terraced steps before taking an aisle seat in a vacant row.

The lecture went from 10 a.m. until noon but there was a five-minute break in between at 11 a.m. Most students were in the habit of going outside to stretch their legs during this short interval; Paul and Patina were normally numbered amongst these, and this day was no different--at least in that respect.

But it was now Paul’s particular intention to go outside that he might be reunited with her--the strange ambivalent love of his life. He was nervous about being away from her for too long. He felt she might somehow disappear in a puff of smoke if he left her alone for more than an hour or so.

Patina exited the theater first, followed closely by Paul, who had been keeping a sharp eye on her and her movements. He found her at the outer perimeter of the throng, standing by herself.

As he approached her more closely he could see she was fearfully nervous. She avoided looking directly at him but chose to look everywhere else instead. Her eyes darted abruptly from side to side then paused to focus upon the ground. Her nervous tension was palpable.

Paul said "G-day." She looked at him then and not until then. Her face was pink with embarrassment. Her smile was effusively broad but subject to a tremor of the upper lip, which tainted it with so much fear as to render it artificial and false. Her smile was appeasing rather than friendly.

During that five-minute break, in which they indulged in small talk, her behavior was in many respects like that of a timid stranger--a person you didn't know and had never met before, and being unsure of you, such a timid person might tend to be overly self-controlled in observing every detailed aspect of etiquette and politeness.

Paul felt this was somewhat reminiscent of her behavior at their first few meetings, which had caused him to think of her at the time as being a caricature of politeness and congeniality; but that persona, though still in evidence, was now so heavily overlaid with nervous tension that he could tell it wasn’t real. He now felt certain it was merely an enactment. "Perhaps it was just an enactment when I first met her as well." he thought. "Perhaps it was just appeasing behavior, devoid of sincerity and depth of feeling; just a persona, a phony mask designed to assuage her fear of people."

They reentered their classroom together, apparently to resume the relationship, which had just undergone something akin to a glitch. That seemed possible, because Patina's sarcasm and cold aloofness had disappeared completely; all that remained was constrained politeness.

It seemed as if the glitch had spontaneously corrected itself. It also seemed like they were strangers who had met for the first time that day, it was like they were given a second chance, given a clean slate to start their relationship off again from scratch--almost but not quite.

Paul didn't invite Patina to go to the movies that Friday, nor did he go to her place to see her. That's because he really didn't know what to do next. He felt his reverse psychology had worked so very well indeed, but, if he stopped using it, Tina might revert to her sadistic behavior. This prospect was too distressing to entertain. He reached the conclusion that the reverse psychology would only work if he used it all the time. But that, paradoxically, made it a total failure, because he couldn't have a relationship with her while it was in operation.

"What if she started behaving like that toward me in front of my friends and my family. It would be an embarrassment of the highest possible order. It was bad enough when we went to the bush for a picnic with my brother and his wife. We brought a rifle along to shoot some cans just for fun, but she took it so deadly serious that she ended up by trying desperately to out-shoot us. It was so embarrassing--my brother even raised his eyebrows in response to it.

And when we were looking at a pencil-sketch portrait by William Dobell, she was visibly upset when I marveled at how talented he is.

Ego is one thing but sadistic behavior is something else again. It would be downright mortifying to have her continue to treat me like that, and if she loved me she'd never treat me like that in any case, and if she doesn't already love me now she probably never will.

I just can't believe how something so good can become so bad virtually overnight. She must be a clinical case for sure, and I guess I should have known that from all the things she told me about her childhood. This is such a disappointment--no, it's more than a disappointment; it's a goddamn catastrophe! It's like you had a million-dollar mansion that burned to the ground, and it was a total loss because you had no insurance. Why does life have to be like this? It's beyond a joke. I don't think I want to get involved in anything like this ever again. Goddamn it! It's just too painful. It's more than I can bear! This is the worst thing that has ever happened to me in my entire life. I feel as crushed and broken as if I had been flung against a brick wall at sixty miles an hour."

Paul and Patina met again in their Monday morning class. Their conversation was downbeat, was strained and stilted and tense. Paul's words were spoken without zest or enthusiasm, and this may have had a further constraining influence on Patina.

After class, while they were walking once more toward the library, Paul finally bit the bullet and said what was on his mind.

"I thought I should tell you rather than say nothing," he said, in a funereal tone, "that I am unable to continue."

There was a deathly silence, during which he felt mortified by guilt. To Paul, the silence was painful enough to prompt him to say anything at all just to escape it: "I--" he began again feebly, in a strained and croaky voice, but he stopped short--he didn't know what else to say.

"I thought that's what you would do," said Tina, filling the gap in the conversation, "when you didn't come over last Friday." Her tone of voice was polite and pleasant. Her mood seemed calm and composed. Her smile was just as sweet as pie. She seemed to be taking it very well--a lot better than Paul. She apparently wasn't angry with him nor was she disappointed; her pride wasn't hurt at being rejected, nor did she protest his unilateral decision in any way, shape or form. Her frame of mind was apparently one of total, unresisting acceptance and equanimity; her demeanor was all unabashed sweetness and light. Perhaps she could afford to be like that because she had three other boyfriends already.

Paul was unable to give her reasons or an explanation for his course of action. He felt the subject too disconcerting and embarrassing to broach; he couldn't discuss Patina's sadistic behavior with her. It was like a taboo subject for him, and that was that--end of story. And yet he had to escape it by hook or crook, because he simply couldn't bear to have her be so horrible to him.

They entered the library in search of a study desk apiece, but there were so few vacant places available at that particular time and thus a very much smaller chance of finding a pair located conveniently close together. So Patina took the first and Paul continued to search for a second, which he found located pretty much at the far opposite end of building. With that feat accomplished, they both sat down to do some work on respective assignments.

Patina was uncomfortable in her skin and unable to begin her assignment. She felt distracted by a restless visceral sensation akin to hunger, and an agitated disquiet akin to irritability.

"Drat this pen," she thought, "it's just no good, it won't write properly. There is something wrong with it. It’s just worthless junk!"

She scratched and scraped the pen over her writing pad, with angry force applied, and crumpled the top two sheets of paper in the process.

"Blast," she thought, "the paper is no good now either." She tore the crumpled sheets out of her notepad and squashed them in her hands as tight as she could until they formed compacted lumps. Then she threw them in the wastepaper bin.

"Curse us and crush us, my precious," she thought, "it took two months just to get a goodnight kiss out of him, and now he's history--he's flown the coop. I can't believe I did something SO STUPID!"

A buzzing sound was building, was growing steadily louder in her head. She felt too restless to sit any longer, so she stood up and began walking. She ambled aimlessly until she came to a stairwell.

"When one door closes, another door opens." she thought, as she opened the door--and yet another choice presented itself: she could go upstairs perhaps or down.

"Yes, downstairs, that would be the better choice, it would be easier going down than up."

Being deserted, the stairwell was peaceful and quiet to the point where it might have offered her solace if it wasn't for the buzzing in her head, which was becoming increasingly loud and oppressively aversive.

She began to enter a quasi trance-like state. Upon descending the first half-flight of stairs, she was confronted with a featureless wall at the end of the landing. She would have to turn left at this point in order to descend the next half-flight of stairs, but, instead, her eyes became focused intently upon the wall.

She was almost mesmerized by it and yet she could still clearly discern that the wall was made of bricks, and closer examination revealed those bricks had been fired with patches of metallic oxide mixed into the clay--which made them look really hard and brittle.

She could see striped markings too that had been scratched into the clay, and these made the sides and edges appear rough and abrasive. The bricks were all lined up so perfectly straight.

"It looks like the perfectly-measured work of a machine," she thought, "but it must have been done by a skilled artisan, a true artist, someone who could impose order upon chaos."

Then, all of a sudden, her right hand came crashing down in an almost parallel glancing blow, but with full karate force applied against the rough textured skin of the harsh abrasive wall.

"Mmmmmmmm!" she exclaimed, with her lips pressed tightly together so as not to attract attention by crying out. She was bent over double, bobbing her head up and down, and holding her right wrist tightly with her left hand in an effort to reduce the unexpected intensity of the pain.

"Oh shit, have I done it now?" she said out loud, then checked her vocalizing once again, resolving to say no more through fear of being heard.

She looked around nervously to see if anyone was coming up or down the stairs, and, seeing no one, she thought it prudent to assess the extent and seriousness of the injury sustained.

She confirmed at a glance that the bricks were indeed as abrasive as she had imagined; they had certainly done their job well--had plowed deep furrows into her flesh.

But there was surprisingly little blood; instead, a clear sticky liquid (thromboplastin) would quickly fill the deep abrasions.

Her hand was trembling with nervous energy. There was significant discoloration--a redness to begin with, which, over time, would be admixed with blue, black and yellow.

The buzzing droning had now left her head completely and she was feeling strangely better. It was at this point that she decided she simply had to speak to Paul, so she set off immediately on a short quest to find him.

After scouring two floors of the library--an effort of about five-minute’s duration--she found Paul sitting at a study desk and in the process of writing something, an assignment perhaps.

"I've hurt my hand," she said, holding it out for him to see. She was once again holding her right wrist with her left hand, but this time to support and steady it. "I just flicked it out sideways like that," she said, motioning to make a feeble flick of the wrist, "and I ended up hitting the wall by accident."

"Oh my God!" said Paul, in shocked response to suddenly seeing the extent of the injury. Her beautiful hand appeared to have been defiled in a manner reminiscent of a work of art vandalized by barbarians. "You should get a doctor to have a look at that."

"Oh, it'll be okay," she said, casually, "I've had worse than this--I think I'm accident prone."

She took her leave of him then as if the message had been conveyed in full and there was nothing more that needed to be said. Brief though this encounter was, it was nevertheless an approach toward Paul; and, by Patina’s standards, it was an extrovert move of almost unparalleled proportions.

It was a one-of, it would not be repeated, and she would now withdraw back inside herself. She would make no further moves toward him, no positive steps, nor would she speak to him again unless he was to take the initiative and begin a conversation with her.

(This is a line break)

"That was no accident," thought Paul. "She came to deliver a message to me: to tell me how very sincerely sorry she is. And I believe her without question, because actions speak louder than words. This makes all the difference in the world. If she's as sorry as this, she must surely have strong feelings for me, so perhaps there's some hope remaining of us getting back together.

But how can I go back to her now after having broken it off with her? How could I explain myself? What could I tell her? I can't just say I've changed my tiny, fickle mind for no reason at all."

Their afternoon class of that same day found Paul and Patina sitting at opposite ends of the lecture theatre. A girl who was a mutual acquaintance was sitting in the front row. She was turned around in her seat and looking back at the class (rubber necking) out of idle curiosity presumably to pass the time during the short interval prior to the commencement of the lecture. She was visibly shocked and saddened at seeing Paul and Patina thus separated.

It was Dr. Alice Berkhart’s class, at the end of which Alice screened a short film. The subject matter was apropos; being a story concerning young love gone wrong and it was almost a parody of the events of that morning:

A young guy had given his girlfriend the brush off in a particularly cold and callous fashion. The commentary Alice gave when the film had finished was almost certainly intended to be facetious, because the plot was too melodramatic to be taken seriously: "He told her it was All OVER! Well, at least he didn't push her down the stairs!"

Those loud, facetious words marked the end of the class. Tina was the first to stand, and she ran immediately up the stairs to the top exit. Paul quickly made his ascent of the stairs on the other side of the theatre. He had been seated in a higher row, and closer to the doorway. This enabled him to catch her up just as they exited the theatre.

She was apparently so upset, she didn't even notice him. She looked mortified, and she looked so sensitive and vulnerable. Tears were running down her face. She was already walking quickly but she soon increased her pace till she was walking at top speed. She then broke her stride and began to run.

"I LOVE YOU!" he screamed, under his breath, and then continued to watch her alternately running and walking briskly until she was out of sight.