Board Meeting

The Jackster board were meeting downstairs but I lay down in my old room on the top floor of the Don and Ella's villa and looked at the ceiling. it looked very restful. I had told everyone I had a headache but really was going through something else. I was feeling kind of overloaded and oversensitive and I wanted to lie still for a while to get my bearings. Mostly, I felt strange. And I did have a little headache.

Jilly brought me a cup of cambric tea and sat with me for a while but I sent her back downstairs. We are not voting members of the board but we get to sit in. I needed her down there. Suddenly I was guilty that I wasn't at the meeting. What would they think of me flaking out like this? We have a lot of business on just now.

I didn't mean to but I fell asleep. When I woke it was dark and I could still hear everyone talking downstairs. I could tell that Don was laughing at his own jokes. I still felt oddly separated from the world so I got up and sat looking out the window, looking up at the rising moon. I got into a train of thought to do with hunger around the world and and that led to the price of fuel and the nature of speed, for travelers, and then about the moon being tidal. Maybe the moon could pull our vehicles, somehow. At certain times of month they could carry sensitized liquid which would add pull when they were going in the right direction. Well, it was an idea!

I felt in my pocket for a pen and then looked around. No pen anywhere.

In the moonlight I could see the lurid cover of a paperback novel on the bedside table. "The Philanthropist Murders," it was called, featuring the detective Mufeena Grizzly. I turned the light on and got back in bed and carefully read the back jacket. This one sounded good.

For the first time all day I felt completely relaxed.