Mixed Feminine Message in Wife of Baths Tale by Geoffrey Chaucer Essay

Mixed Feminine Message in Wife of Baths Tale by Geoffrey ChaucerIn the Wife of Baths Tale by Geoffrey Chaucer, various women, such as the Queen and the old beldame, stake their claim to authority over men. Yet, they do so in a real covert manner. The knight has clearly abused his male power. He is a rapist. With the help of women, however, he is rehabilitated and seems to achieve the ultimate happiness. When these women support the feminist tie-up that women should have mastery over their husbands, they are also echoing the sentiments the Wife of Bath presents in her prologue. Yet, these women abandon mastery the moment they attain it. The old hag relinquishes mastery back to her husband immediately after he grants it to her, from that point on she obeys his every command. This ending could be a type of female servitude or it could be a mutually beneficial, blithe marriage and partnership. For this reason, the Wife of Baths Tale sends a mixed message about feminism. T he tale begins with a violent act of male aggression and dominance. The knight rapes a young virgin. This rape is about more than his being a lusty bacheler (Chaucer l. 889). It is about power. He sawgh a maide walking him biforn / Of which maide anoon, maugree hir heed, / By verray force he rafte hir maidenheed (Chaucer l. 892). The knight is not merely carried away by his sexual instincts. He sees a woman he covets and takes her by force because he has the power and she does not. This violent rape demonstrates the knights initial attitude towards women and his need for rehabilitation. Queen takes over the knights punishment for raping the young girl. Instead of death she provides the potential for rehabilitatio... ...re for the most part consistent with her tale. All this suggests a feminist interpretation of the tale. And yet there is the issue of the ending. In every sense of the word the hag submits. She feels she has gained her mastery and then she reli nquish it. Does she do so in favor of a mutually blissful marriage or to conform to patriarchal ideals? Perhaps Chaucer and the Wife of Bath are suggesting that male rehabilitation and female dominance are only demand up to a point. Once the knight and the hag achieve a shared understanding they are able to coexist. Or perhaps in the very end both Chaucer and the Wife of Bath acknowledge that this kind of understanding is sheer fantasy and the Wife cruses the couple for good luck and protection. With both these reasoned possibilities, the tale presents a mixed message about the place of feminism and female authority.

Case-Based Environmental Ethics :: Philosophy Essays

Case-Based Environmental EthicsCases have been widely used in medical ethics and law. In both fields, legion(predicate) books and articles about cases have appeared, including book-length catalogs of cases. I argue that pluralistic casuistry provides an adequate approach to environmental ethics. It retains the strengths while avoiding the weaknesses of the other approaches. Importantly, it resolves some broader theoretical issues and provides a clear, explicit methodological analysis for education and praxis. Cases have been widely used in medical ethics and law. In both fields, numerous books and articles about cases have appeared, including book-length catalogs of cases. What I propose to do in this paper is to discuss whether environmental ethics should be case-based as in law and medicine.The relationship of cases to surmisal has received intense scholarly debate. At issue is which takes priority. A similar situation exists in the sciences, as well as in most other disciplines. There are the so-called unclouded or research scientists, and also the applied or practical scientist. Field biologists, conservation biologists, restoration ecologists, landscape engineers, sylvantologists, and so on, are applied scientists. Which takes priority theory or application? What I want to discuss is whether environmental ethics, like medicine and law, would benefit from case-based methodology.The long-term aim is to develop an approach to ethics that bequeath help resolve contemporary issues regarding animals and the environment. In their classical formulations and as recently revised by animal and environmental ethicists, mainstream Kantian, utilitarian, and virtue theories have failed adequately to embroil either animals or the environment, or both. The result has been theoretical fragmentation and intractability, which in turn have contributed, at the practical level, to both public and private indecision, disagreement, and conflict. immensely important are the pr actical issues for instance, at the public level the biologically unacceptable and perhaps cataclysmic current rate of species extinctions, the development or deliverance of the few remaining wilderness areas, the global limitations on the sustainable distribution of the current standard of living in the developed nations, and the nonsustainability and abusiveness of todays technologically intense make for and animal farming. For individuals in their private lives, the choices include, for example what foods to eat, what clothing to wear, modes of transportation, labor-intensive work and housing, controlling reproduction, and the distribution of basic and luxury goods. What is needed is an ethical approach that allow for peacefully resolve these and other quandaries, either by producing consensus or by explaining the rational and moral basis for the continuing disagreement.

Physical Punishment :: essays research papers

Physical punishment has been a problem in hitting their children so they can have discipline or not hitting them because it is not right, so what can put forwards do and what can they not do? Should the parents hit them to learn discipline, or should they not hit them and figure reveal another course to make them learn what discipline is?Because many parents do not know or are confused in display their children how to compass discipline they do not know whether to hit them or not to hit them. Many people think that by hitting their children that they are showing them violence but other people say that if you do the children would understand that they did something wrong and would not repeat it and gain discipline. What can parents do?First of alone parents feel that the children are theirs, and they can spank them when they misbehave. at that place are many factors that lead to physical punishment parents were to young and not ready for children, parents are sacking trough a divorce and need to take out their anger on something or someone, or parents do not know another way to punish their children. These children grow up to be aggressive and often abusive towards others. Although parents think this is the only way of educating their children there are many other alternatives.There are other alternatives to punishing the children for their bad behavior. Less severe punishments besides spanking. First, they can take away their television privileges, computer use, and playing outside with their friends. Next, they could fusee them for the weekend and cancel plans. Last of all parents could take the time to sit and talk to their children about their bad behavior.Physical punishment may cause a child psychological problems. First, if the physical punishment starts at an early age the child will be used to being physically punished, therefore, his or hers self-confidence may severely negative as he or she grows up. Second, it is a life-affecting act to ph ysically punish a child because they will be traumatized. lastly parents should think twice before they can physically punish their children. What they should think of is what problems they are causing the child in its life.In conclusion every parent must take consideration that the negative affects that spanking may cause a child.

Challenges Faced by Leaders in Early Contemporary Years :: Social Issues, Collaboration, Communication

Katzenbach and smith (1993) state that a aggroup is a small number of people with completing skills who are committed to a common purpose, approach and performance goals for which they hold themselves mutually accountable as each individual needs to be disposed(p) the opportunity to put forward and link their personal strengths with their roles and responsibilities in order to enhance and empower the team as a whole. There is a misfortune in society to have a single, clear view of the function of early childhood provisions (Jones and Pound, 2008, p. 22). This could cause implications for professionals working together as they could disagree on the goals or outcomes of the setting. Leaders need to support the practitioners within the setting and encourage them to reach their full potential. In contrast, more practitioners may non take to take on the roles of a leader. Jones and Pound (2006) suggest many practitioners have assumed the role rather than applied for it. Often thes e changes can cause many problems to those who try to resist it due to not wanting extra work or even because they simply do not understand the new stemma role. Leaders can overcome this by ensuring all practitioners are treated equally and all ideas are considered (Pound and Jones 2008). Wall (2006) embraces Lumsdens (2005) notion suggesting that a collaboration between professionals is essential to share expertise, information and skills. Wall (2006) supports the need for information to be shared in order to meet the needs of the families. This implies that it is a kinship between individual practitioners that will ultimately decide whether multi agency is effective or not. Jones and Pound (2008) state that a characteristic of an effective multi agency team can exchange information using agreed communication systems. However there are various challenges which can arise from this, such as practitioners not having enough time to share information on a regular basis due to their re sponsibilities. Occasionally co-location makes this easier. Children centres are an exciting and promising initiative build upon from the governments 10 year strategy for children offering a wide range of services combined in order to make a one split up shop which provides resources for lower-income families (Pugh and Duffy 2010 p. 123). Additional government funding has been set in place intended to improve practice and level of qualifications in the early years sector. Pugh and Duffy (2010) suggested this was needed to improve practitioners knowledge.

West Side Story :: essays research papers

The movie takes place in the West Side of New York, in the late 1950s.The Jets are a teenage gang of American boys determined not only to check but to destroy the growth of Puerto Rican population and influence on their block. They are opposed by a Puerto Rican gang, the Sharks, lead by Bernardo.In the entirely dance sene, the members of the two rival gangs provoke each other. A fight breaks out between them, but its broken up by the arrival of two cops. After the police has got rid of the Puerto Ricans, Riff, the leader of the Jets, informs his gang that he will challenge Bernardo to a decisive rumble that darkness at a dance. The Jets are convinced of their invincibility, they sing the Jet song.Riff tries to talk his friend Tony into being his lieutenant for the challenge. Tony, who is the co-founder of the Jets, has been growing away from the gang and is instantaneously working at Docs, the neighborhoods drugstore. Tony reluctantly agrees to meet Riff at the dance and sings ab out his feelings the song he sings is cal conduct somethings comming i think.The Jets, led by Riff and Graziella, and the Sharks, led by Bernardo and his girl Anita, meet at the dance in the neighborhoood gym, where in choreography their violent hostility to each other is reflected when they dance at the gym.During the frantic dancing, Tony meets the lovely Maria. She is Bernardos sister who has just arrived from Puerto Rico to marry Chino. To both Tony and Maria, its love at first sight. But Bernardo stops them from dancing together and insists that Chino takes Maria home. subsequently the challenge is made for a war council to decide on weapons for the rumble. Meanwhile, Tony walks through the streets, thinking only of his new love, Maria . On a tenement rooftop, Bernardo, his female child Anita and their friends joyfully sing about the relative quality of life among Puerto Ricans in New York. At midnight, the Sharks boys go off to the war council, much to Anitas annoyance at Be rnardo.Meanwhile, Tony finds the building where Maria lives and he climbs up her fire escape to meet her. They sing of their lovetonight. They plan to meet in the bridal shop where Maria is sedulous the next day.At Docs drugstore, Riff and the Jets are warned by Krupke, a cop, no to cause any trouble on the block.

West Side Story :: essays research papers

The movie takes place in the West Side of New York, in the late 1950s.The Jets are a teenage gang of American boys determined not only to check besides to destroy the growth of Puerto Rican population and influence on their block. They are opposed by a Puerto Rican gang, the Sharks, led by Bernardo.In the entirely move sene, the members of the two rival gangs provoke each other. A fight breaks out between them, but its broken up by the arrival of two cops. After the police has got rid of the Puerto Ricans, Riff, the leader of the Jets, informs his gang that he will challenge Bernardo to a crucial rumble that night at a dance. The Jets are convinced of their invincibility, they sing the Jet song.Riff tries to talk his friend Tony into being his lieutenant for the challenge. Tony, who is the co-founder of the Jets, has been growing external from the gang and is now working at Docs, the neighborhoods drugstore. Tony reluctantly agrees to meet Riff at the dance and sings about his feelings the song he sings is called somethings comming i think.The Jets, led by Riff and Graziella, and the Sharks, led by Bernardo and his girl Anita, meet at the dance in the neighborhoood gym, where in choreography their violent hostility to each other is reflected when they dance at the gym.During the frenzied dancing, Tony meets the lovely Maria. She is Bernardos sister who has just arrived from Puerto Rico to marry Chino. To both Tony and Maria, its love at first sight. But Bernardo stops them from dancing unneurotic and insists that Chino takes Maria home.Later the challenge is made for a war council to decide on weapons for the rumble. Meanwhile, Tony walks through the streets, thinking only of his new love, Maria . On a tenement rooftop, Bernardo, his girlfriend Anita and their friends joyfully sing about the relative quality of life among Puerto Ricans in New York. At midnight, the Sharks boys go off to the war council, oft to Anitas annoyance at Bernardo.Meanwhile, Ton y finds the building where Maria lives and he climbs up her fire escape to meet her. They sing of their lovetonight. They plan to meet in the bridal grass over where Maria is employed the next day.At Docs drugstore, Riff and the Jets are warned by Krupke, a cop, no to cause any trouble on the block.

History of Physical therapy advancement Essay

History of physical therapy from past to present it continues to be an expansive force field in medical field. Historically, during 460 BC primitive physical therapy techniques were employed and applied in diagnosing, daintinessment and worry of the patients. The traditional primitive techniques applied involved rub down and hydrotherapy in treating patients, which was advocated by physicians like hector and Hippocrates (Basmajian, 2000). It is therefore, from this primitive interventional approach in treating individuals with physical injuries that today techniques developed.America in 1924 witnessed a new clack by formation of Physical Therapy Association pipe organized by Mary MacMillan that today is popularly known as APTA (America Physical Therapy Association). This body (APTA) is vital organ in physical therapy bear upond issues and development. In these historical periods, the commonly practiced areas of intervention to patients were in exercise, traction and message. Th e practice environment for therapists was only based on in patient, but today has extended to out-patient accounting to over 63 percent (Basmajian, 2000, p. 10).However, with time therapists moved to out-patent orthopedic clinics, schools, rehabilitation centers and genetriatic settings as opposed to hospital settings. This marked new beginning in blowup of the physical therapy area of operation and services diversity. According to ABPT (American Board of physical therapy), lists several fields that go under physical therapy, but emphasize on six major ones that are universally accepted worldwide.These areas are orthopedic that therapists diagnose marriage and treat injuries and dis order of battles involving the musculoskeletal systems and rehabilitation after surgery practiced especially in outpatients. Secondly, cardiopulmonary therapies that treats and manages patients after surgery or patients without undergoing surgery in cardiopulmonary disorders (Worthingham, 2002). Thir dly, neurological therapies focus on treating and managing after diagnosing patients affected with neurological disorders. Fourthly, pediatric therapies aim at early detection of health problems and treat disorders.Fifth, geriatric therapies focuses on the use of goods and services and management of health issues related to aging old age like osteoporosis cancer and Alzheimers diseases. And lastly, the therapies of integument focus on the treatment of the conditions that involves or relate to skin health problems like would treatment. However, the areas of concern for physical therapists are not limited to the mentioned six but do extend to other relevant appear special fields like clinical electrophysiology and sports injuries (Worthingham, 2002)Advancements in physical therapy A part for tradition practices in the field of physical therapy the past decades there submit been various developments that have facilitated change. For instance, in defined physical therapy as treatmen t by use of exercises and massaging to keep muscles stretched. I have no objection with this comment as it was appropriate and served the purpose at time, in fact to help to come up with a better definition.As effect with need for expansion and growing, needs to be accommodating in physical therapy, (Wyke, 2008), come up with physical therapy as diagnosing, treatment of disorders and injuries with physical means. This new devised therapy practices, but it in any case indicate the expanded view and perception and description of physical therapy in todays world. Thus, the latest advancement in physical therapy was optimal treatment essence to the patients by adaptation of psychological approach.The approach visualize optimal treatment outcome as a function of both clinical pro factors associated with therapist and the psychological factors associated with the patient. In order to achieve this, various advancements has been achieved geared towards making patient health care effec tual. Introduction of sports, recreation and manipulation The incoming and use of sports, recreation and manipulation is one of the advancement witnessed in physical therapy that has really improved patient care.For instance, the cases of shoulder impingement syndrome are managed with a multimodal approach. much(prenominal) patients no wards undergo a multimodal protocol intervention hat encompasses photospheres, rotator cuff and shoulder girdle muscle exercises, diversified manipulation and soft tissue, and finally ease up to normal daily sporting activities and work. The resultant outcome reports mo re than 68% effectiveness at the end of treatment protocol with follow-up of 4 to 12 weeks (Worthingham 239).In sum total, the use of soft tissue techniques like frictional and ischemic compression electrons electro modalities-technique like ultrasound, rehabilitation by are of exercises and manipulation is proved to be useful in improving outcome of the patient care, since it is m ore inter active and centralize patient centered care. Advancement interventions In diagnosis and treatment of muscular-skeletal systems like weakness pain and altered joint properties there has been major advancement in the area of approach.One of the main advancements reached include active assistance of joint range of motion, active assistance of soft tissue morality, passive joint range of motion, functioning multi plane self graded strengthens, kinematic kitchen stove biomechanics and lastly PNF (Proprioceptive Neuro-motor Re-education) (Wyke, 2008) these aspects have been designed to achieve patient friendliness, encouragement of positive carry over between treatments in home based programs, improved patients dexterity to reduce pain by themselves by use of current end ranges of motions and lastly restoration of correct neuro-motor biochemical (Moore, 2007, p. 51) through use of AAROM (Active Assisted chuck of Motions) The results to patient out some proves to be more than 73% effective with follow up of about 5 13 weeks. Whereas in neurology such therapies like constraint induced movement therapy CCI) proves to be efficient in restoring functions in the upper extremities of patients with stroke. Advanced administration and management Physical the rapists in order to deliver best patient care, they need to utilize knowledge and skill in administration or business management to be guiding mannequin for their work.Historically, administration has evolved since the 1999 LAMP document guiding on physical therapists administration. LAMP (leadership administration and management preparation) documented by APTAs (Moore, 2007) can no longer be efficient to function in this era of technology and paradigm shift in administration skills. The basic six areas contained in the document include examinations evaluations, intervention, diagnosis, prognosis and outcome needed to be integrated with business and technological domains in order to advance the field of physical therapy (Basmajian, 2000).For instance, many practioners find it necessary to use management software to standardize practice and facilitate outcome comparison. One such useful gad gets is the PTCMR (physical therapy computerized medical record). This system gather all the incoming study about the patients treatment and evaluation additionally, the system is for clinical research with incorporation of DCDC (Duke cardiovascular database) and ARAMIS (American Rheumatism Association of medical information database) that gives PTCMR with vital information through networks for research.Such aspects of standard physical therapy measures of important like pain, range of motion and strength are also inclusive in the system (effectiveness of the system disturb to table 1). The system proves efficient by resultant of about 32% reduction of pain in patient with TENS (Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation) which was tested. Additionally, there noteworthy decreased ambulation a s a result of management enhanced by PTCMR system (Moore, 2007).

Life as a Female Slave Under the Code of Hammurabi Essay

I am a female slave, given into slavery for 4 years by my father, he owed a debt that he could non pay. A debt for grain that he was to pay back 3 fold. The debt collector would live taken what little we had and perhaps would pick up made father pay with his life if Hammurabi had not made a way for my family to cancel our debt in this way. It is whole for 4 years, such a dour time for so little a debt, but we ar fortunate to have this option. I testament be provided with the basic necessities for survival. I am counted as nothing more than property, or currency, for my sea captain.I am not considered human. I was formerly a member of the middle class, paupers that can farm. There be only three classes in our society, the wealthy, the worthless, and the slaves. Now, I am a slave for the next four years. It is very common practice, so much so that even the poor have slaves. Our most common forms of currency are grain, silver, slaves, cattle, and livestock. As you can imagine , I am not alone in my experience in slavery. some(prenominal) of my peers are or have been enslaved at least once in their lives. Both my mother and father were slaves at some point.Many female slaves ordinarily end up with their Master for many more years than the 4 required by law. After 4 years, they are no broader slaves and are often in the same class as the man they have lived with. In our society many children are products of those relationships. Until the time of slavery is up, I mustiness work off a debt. I am not permitted to deny my Master, or I could be punished. One such punishment could involve having my ears decamp off. This is not very common. Many of us understand we are here to work and that we must be submissive to avoid conflict.As I mentioned we will be allowed the basic necessities, food and water, and protection from the environment if the weather is harsh. The laws of how I live as a female and as a slave are go forthlined in Hammurabis codification. Hammurabi is a fair and just man. I feel his laws are fair and just given my position and given the alternatives that could have taken place if my fathers debt went unpaid. And to lose an ear and not a life for disobedience is more than fair. Hammurabi has provided us with options which has been beneficial for us at this time. We all know the laws. We can all read and understand them.Our officials rule by the law and laws pertain to everyone. For example, I am safe with my Master, should anyone take me from my Master- he could be put to death.. Everyone in the city knows this law and should someone see another take me from my Master, they will notify officials. The officials will investigate the matter. The person who takes me could be put to death. Few people risk this. Also, should my Master lend me out to another man and that man harm me, he would have to pay my Master fines for the damage he caused. It is very difficult for the common man to pay fines, so little harm is ever don e to a slave that is on loan.Slavery here is not a social stigma. I am of the same class as the majority and speak the same language. Business and practicality are more important here than ideology, thus it is more beneficial for a Master to have strong, healthy slaves for commercial purposes. The law is clear and written out and encourages this kind of a society. Physical abuse is not very common among our people, but it is used in extreme cases. I was very surprised when examine this to discover that laws regarding slavery in the United States, while similar in many ways, were more harsh than the laws for the slaves in a more primitive environment.For example, the order of Hammurabi stipulates that if a slave is given in trade for a debt it is for a period of 4 years. In the Unites States, the slave codes suggested that slavery was a life long event. There was no limit to the length of time a person could be a slave. I could not find many similarities, with the exception that it was not uncommon for female slaves to bear children with their Masters. In further research I found evidence that slaves in Babylonian captivity not too long after the Code of Hammurabi was implemented, owned property and were allowed to trade. Some even made more money than their Masters.So, I could not really compare and contrast the Code of Hammurabi with the Slave Codes of the Southern States, which was not only disappointing but deeply troubling. The one thing that does stand out as the most obvious comparison to something we are familiar with today is the epilogue to the Code of Hammurabi and the Preamble of the US Constitution. Both introduced a set of laws that were created to protect the people, provide a basis for justice, instigate the welfare, ensure prosperity. Actually, I believe Hammurabi said it best, That the strong might not injure the weak.

Black House Chapter Twenty-one

21SOPHIE.Still holding her hand, he dispirits to his feet, pulling her up with him. His legs ar trembling. His eyes feel tropical and also large for their sockets. He is terrified and exalted in equal, perfectly equal, measure. His heart is hammering, entirely oh the beats atomic number 18 sweet. The second time he tries, he manages to range her name a fine louder, only in that respects quieten not oft to his voice, and his lips are so numb they might ask been rubbed with ice. He sounds wish intumesce a man just approach shot back from a hard punch in the gut.Yes.Sophie.Yes.Sophie.Yes.Theres something weirdly familiar slightly this, him saying the name e verywhere and everypl iodin and her giving back that simple affirmation. Familiar and funny. And it gos to him in that respects a scene almost identical to this in The Terror of Deadwood Gulch, aft(prenominal) bingle of the purposeless 8 Saloons patrons has knocked Bill Towns unconscious with a whiskey bottle. Lily, in her role as sweet Nancy ONeal, tosses a bucket of wet in his reckon, and when he sits up, they This is funny, jackfruit says. Its a h onenessst bit. We should be laughing.With the slightest of smiles, Sophie says, Yes.Laughing our fool heads off.Yes.Our tarnal heads off.Yes.Im not speaking English any more than(prenominal) than, am I?No.He sees dickens things in her glum eyes. The first is that she doesnt do it the word English. The second is that she get alongs exactly what he means.Sophie.Yes.Sophie-Sophie-Sophie.Trying to get the reality of it. Trying to pound it home comparable a nail. A smile lights her face and enriches her mouth. hole gestates of how it would be to kiss that mouth, and his knees feel weak. altogether(prenominal) at formerly he is fourteen again, and admireing if he dares give his era a peck good-night later he walks her home.Yes-yes-yes, she says, the smile streng whenceing. And past Have you got it further? Do you understand that youre here and how you got here?Above and most him, bil sm completely-scales of pure blank cloth flap and sigh like living breath. Half a dozen conflicting drafts gently touch his face and make him a evoke that he carried a coat of sweat from the other world, and that it stinks. He blazon it off his brow and cheeks in quick gestures, not indispensablenessing to lose portion of her for longer than a moment at a time.They are in a tent of some diversity. Its huge many-chambered and knucklebones conceive ofs briefly of the pavilion in which the Queen of the Territories, his mothers Twinner, lay dying. That place had been rich with many colors, fil direct with many rooms, redolent of incense and sorrow (for the Queens death had come alonged inevitable, sure only a field of study of time). This iodin is ramshackle and ragged. The walls and the ceiling are full of holes, and where the white material remains whole, its so thin that mariner tooshie actually see the hawk of land out post, and the trees that dress it. Rags flutter from the edges of some of the holes when the wind blows. Directly over his head he bottomland see a shadowy maroon shape. some sort of cross. bull, do you understand how you Yes. I flipped. Although that isnt the word that set outs out of his mouth. The literal meaning of the word that decreases out seems to be horizon road. And it seems that I sucked a ordinary number of Spieglemans accessories with me. He bends and picks up a flat stone with a flower carved on it. I beevasivenessve that in my world, this was a Georgia OKeeffe print. And that He points to a blackened, fireless torch leaning against one of the pavilions fragile walls. I figure that was a notwithstanding there are no course for it in this world, and what comes out of his mouth sounds as ugly as a curse in German halogen lamp.She frowns. Hal-do-jen . . . limp? Lemp?He feels his numb lips rise in a gnomish grin. Never mind.But you are all right.He understands that she needs him to be all right, and so hell say that he is, passive hes not. He is sick and glad to be sick. He is one lovestruck daddy, and wouldnt receive it any other government agency. If you discount how he felt about his mother a very different kind of love, despite what the Freudians might think its the first time for him. Oh, he surely thought he had been in and out of love, scarcely that was earlier today. Before the peaceful blue of her eyes, her smile, and even the elbow room the shadows thrown by the decaying tent fleet across her face like schools of angle. At this moment he would try to fly off a mountain for her if she needed, or walk through a forest fire, or bring her polar ice to cool her tea, and those things do not constitute being all right.But she needs him to be.Tyler needs him to be.I am a coppiceman, he thinks. At first the fantasy seems insubstantial compared to her beauty to her simple reality save then it begins to take hold. As it always has. What else brought him here, after all? Brought him against his will and all his stovepipe intentions? twat?Yes, Im all right. Ive flipped before. But never into the presence of such beauty, he thinks. Thats the problem. Youre the problem, my lady.Yes. To come and go is your talent. One of your talents. So I devour been told.By whom?Shortly, she says. Shortly. Theres a salient deal to do, and yet I think I need a moment. You . . . tail endher take my breath on contendd. tinkers dam is fiercely glad to get laid it. He sees he is cool it holding her hand, and he kisses it, as Judy kissed his hands in the world on the other side of the wall from this one, and when he does, he sees the ok mesh of bandage on the tips of three of her fingers. He wishes he dared to take her in his arms, moreover she daunts him her beauty and her presence. She is slightly taller than Judy a matter of two inches, surely no more and her hair is lighter, the golden sh ade of unrefined honey spilling from a broken comb. She is eroding a simple cotton robe, white gelded with a blue that matches her eyes. The narrow V-neck frames her throat. The hem glints to just below her knees. Her legs are bare but shes wearing a silver anklet on one of them, so slim its almost invisible. She is fuller-breasted than Judy, her hips a bit wider. Sisters, you might think, except that they have the similar spray of freckles across the nose and the same white line of scar across the back of the left hand. Different mishaps caused that scar, jackass has no doubt, but he also has no doubt that those mishaps occurred at the same hour of the same day.Youre her Twinner. Judy Marshalls Twinner. only when the word that comes out of his mouth isnt Twinner incredibly, dopily, it seems to be harp. Later he will think of how the strings of a harp lie close together, only a fingers touch apart, and he will decide that word isnt so foolish after all.She looks down, her mout h drooping, then raises her head again and tries to smile. Judy. On the other side of the wall. When we were children, Jack, we spoke together often. Even when we grew up, although then we spoke in each others dreams. He is alarmed to see tears forming in her eyes and then slipping down her cheeks. Have I driven her mad? Run her to lunacy? Please say I havent.Nah, Jack says. Shes on a tightrope, but she hasnt fallen off yet. Shes tough, that one.You have to bring her Tyler back to her, Sophie tells him. For both of us. Ive never had a child. I flocknot have a child. I was . . . mistreated, you see. When I was young. Mistreated by one you knew well.A terrible certainty forms in Jacks mind. Around them, the ruined pavilion fuss and sighs in the wonderfully fragrant breeze.Was it Morgan? Morgan of orris?She bows her head, and perhaps this is just as well. Jacks face is, at that moment, pulled into an ugly snarl. In that moment he wishes he could kill Morgan Sloats Twinner all over again. He thinks to ask her how she was mistreated, and then realizes he doesnt have to.How old were you?Twelve, she says . . . as Jack has known she would say. It happened that same year, the year when Jacky was twelve and came here to save his mother. Or did he come here? Is this really the Territories? Somehow it doesnt feel the same. Almost . . . but not quite.It doesnt surprise him that Morgan would rape a child of twelve, and do it in a way that would keep her from ever having children. Not at all. Morgan Sloat, sometimes known as Morgan of Orris, wanted to rule not just one world or two, but the entire universe. What are a few raped children to a man with such ambitions?She gently slips her thumbs across the skin beneath his eyes. Its like being napped with feathers. Shes looking at him with something like wonder. why do you weep, Jack?The past, he says. Isnt that always what does it? And thinks of his mother, sitting by the window, smoking a cigarette, and listening while t he radio plays Crazy Arms. Yes, its always the past. Thats where the hurt is, all you locoweedt get over.Perhaps so, she allows. But theres no time to think about the past today. Its the future we moldiness think about today.Yes, but if I could ask just a few caputs . . . ?All right, but only a few.Jack opens his mouth, tries to speak, and makes a comical belittled gaping expression when nothing comes out. Then he laughs. You take my breath extraneous, too, he tells her. I have to be honest about that.A undefined tinge of color rises in Sophies cheeks, and she looks down. She opens her lips to say something . . . then presses them together again. Jack wishes she had spoken and is glad she hasnt, both at the same time. He squeezes her hands gently, and she looks up at him, blue eyes wide.Did I know you? When you were twelve?She shakes her head.But I saw you.Perhaps. In the large pavilion. My mother was one of the Good Queens handmaidens. I was another . . . the youngest. You c ould have seen me then. I think you did see me.Jack takes a moment to digest the wonder of this, then goes on. Time is short. They both know this. He can almost feel it fleeting.You and Judy are Twinners, but neither of you travel shes never been in your head over here and youve never been in her head, over there. You . . . talk through a wall.Yes.When she wrote things, that was you, whispering through the wall.Yes. I knew how hard I was pushing her, but I had to. Had to Its not just a question of restoring her child to her, important as that whitethorn be. There are larger considerations.Such as?She shakes her head. I am not the one to tell you. The one who will is much greater than I.He studies the tiny dressings that cover the tips of her fingers, and muses on how hard Sophie and Judy have tried to get through that wall to each other. Morgan Sloat could plain become Morgan of Orris at will. As a boy of twelve, Jack had met others with that same talent. Not him he was single-natu red and had always been Jack in both worlds. Judy and Sophie, however, have proved incapable of flipping back and forth in any fashion. Somethings been left out of them, and they could only whisper through the wall between the worlds. There must be sadder things, but at this moment he cant think of a single one.Jack looks around at the ruined tent, which seems to breathe with sunshine and shadow. Rags flap. In the next room, through a hole in the gauzy cloth wall, he sees a few over sullen cots. What is this place? he asks.She smiles. To some, a infirmary.Oh? He looks up and once more takes note of the cross. Maroon now, but undoubtedly once red. A red cross, stupid, he thinks. Oh But isnt it a little . . . well . . . old?Sophies smile widens, and Jack realizes its ironic. Whatever sort of hospital this is, or was, hes guessing it bears little or no resemblance to the ones on General hospital or ER. Yes, Jack. Very old. Once there were a dozen or more of these tents in the Territor ies, On-World, and Mid-World now there are only a few. peradventure just this one. Today its here. Tomorrow . . . Sophie raises her hands, then lowers them. Anywhere Perhaps even on Judys side of the wall.Sort of like a traveling medicine show.This is suppose to be a joke, and hes startled when she first nods, then laughs and claps her hands. Yes Yes, indeed Although you wouldnt want to be treated here.What exactly is she act to say? I suppose not, he agrees, looking at the rotting walls, tattered ceiling panels, and ancient support posts. Doesnt exactly look sterile.Seriously (but her eyes are sparkling), Sophie says Yet if you were a patient, you would think it beautiful out of all measure. And you would think your nurses, the Little Sisters, the most beautiful any poor patient ever had.Jack looks around. Where are they?The Little Sisters dont come out when the sun shines. And if we wish to continue our lives with the blessing, Jack, well be bypast our dampen ways from here long before dark.It pains him to hear her talk of separate ways, even though he knows its inevitable. The pain doesnt dampen his curiosity, however once a coppiceman, it seems, always a coppiceman.Why?Because the Little Sisters are vampires, and their patients never get well.Startled, uneasy, Jack looks around for signs of them. Certainly disbelief doesnt cross his mind a world that can spawn werewolves can spawn anything, he supposes.She touches his wrist. A little tremble of desire goes through him.Dont fear, Jack they also serve the Beam. All things serve the Beam.What beam?Never mind. The hand on his wrist tightens. The one who can answer your questions will be here soon, if hes not already. She gives him a sideways look that contains a glimmer of a smile. And after you hear him, youll be more apt to ask questions that matter.Jack realizes that he has been neatly rebuked, but coming from her, it doesnt sting. He allows himself to be led through room after room of the great an d ancient hospital. As they go, he gets a sense of how really huge this place is. He also realizes that, in spite of the fresh breezes, he can detect a faint, unpleasant undersmell, something that might be a mixture of fermented wine and spoiled meat. As to what sort of meat, Jack is afraid he can guess pretty well. After visiting over a hundred homicide crime scenes, he should be able to.It would have been impolite to break away while Jack was meeting the love of his life (not to mention bad narrative business), so we didnt. Now, however, let us slip through the thin walls of the hospital tent. Outside is a dry but not unpleasant landscape of red rocks, broom sage, desert flowers that look a bit like sego lilies, impede pines, and a few barrel cacti. Somewhere not too off the beaten track(predicate) distant is the steady cool sigh of a river. The hospital pavilion rustles and flaps as dreamily as the sails of a ship riding down the sweet chute of the trade winds. As we float alon g the great ruined tents east side in our effortless and peculiarly pleasant way, we notice a strew of litter. There are more rocks with drawings etched on them, there is a beautifully made copper rose that has been twisted out of shape as if by some great heat, there is a vitiated rag rug that looks as if it has been chopped in two by a meat cleaver. Theres other stuff as well, stuff that has resisted any agitate in its cyclonic passage from one world to the other. We see the blackened husk of a television picture tube lying in a scatter of broken glass, several Duracell AA batteries, a comb, and perhaps oddest a pair of white nylon panties with the word Sunday written on one side in demure pink script. There has been a collision of worlds here, along the east side of the hospital pavilion, is an intermingled detritus that attests to how hard that collision was.At the end of that littery tweak of exhaust the head of the comet, we might say sits a man we recognize. Were not u sed to seeing him in such an ugly brown robe (and he clearly doesnt know how to wear such a garment, because if we look at him from the wrong angle, we can see much more than we want to), or wearing sandals instead of wing tips, or with his hair pulled back into a rough horsetail and secured with a hank of rawhide, but this is undoubtedly Wendell Green. He is grumbling to himself. Drool drizzles from the corners of his mouth. He is looking fixedly at an untidy crumple of foolscap in his right hand. He ignores all the more cataclysmic changes that have occurred around him and focuses on just this one. If he can figure out how his Panasonic minicorder turned into a little pile of ancient paper, perhaps hell move on to the other stuff. Not until then.Wendell (well continue to adjure him Wendell, shall we, and not worry about any name he might or might not have in this little corner of existence, since he doesnt know it or want to) spies the Duracell AA batteries. He crawls to them, p icks them up, and begins trying to stick them into the little pile of foolscap. It doesnt work, of course, but that doesnt keep Wendell from trying. As George Rathbun might say, Give that boy a flyswatter and hed try to catch dinner with it.Geh, says the Coulee Countrys favorite investigative reporter, repeatedly poking the batteries at the foolscap. Geh . . . in. Geh . . . in Gah-damnit, geh in th A sound the coming jingle of what can only be, God help us, spurs breaks into Wendells concentration, and he looks up with wide, bulging eyes. His sanity may not be gone forever, but its certainly taken the wife and kids and gone to Disney World. Nor is the current vision before his eyes apt to coax it back anytime soon.Once in our world there was a fine black actor named Woody Strode. (Lily knew him acted with him, as a matter of fact, in a late-sixties American International stinkeroo accosted Execution Express.) The man now approach path the place where Wendell Green crouches wit h his batteries and his handful of foolscap looks remarkably like that actor. He is wearing faded jeans, a blue chambray shirt, a neck scarf, and a heavy six-gun on a wide leather gun belt in which four dozen or so shells twinkle. His head is bald, his eyes deep-set. Slung over one shoulder by a strap of intricate design is a guitar. Sitting on the other is what appears to be a parrot. The parrot has two heads.No, no, says Wendell in a mildly scolding voice. Dont. Dont see. Dont see. That. He lowers his head and once more begins trying to cram the batteries into the handful of paper.The shadow of the newcomer falls over Wendell, who resolutely refuses to look up.Howdy, stranger, says the newcomer.Wendell carries on not looking up.My names Parkus. Im the law round these parts. Whats your handle?Wendell refuses to respond, unless we can call the low grunts issuing from his drool-slicked mouth a response.I asked your name.Wen, says our old impropriety (we cant really call him a par tner) without looking up. Wen. Dell. Gree . . . Green. I . . . I . . . I . . .Take your time, Parkus says (not without sympathy). I can wait till your branding iron gets hot.I . . . news hawkOh? That what you are? Parkus hunkers Wendell cringes back against the fragile wall of the pavilion. Well, dont that just beat the bass drum at the front of the parade? Tell you what, Ive seen fish hawks, and Ive seen red hawks, and Ive seen goshawks, but youre my first news hawk.Wendell looks up, blinking rapidly.On Parkuss left shoulder, one head of the parrot says God is love.Go fuck your mother, replies the other head.All must seek the river of life, says the first head.Suck my tool, says the second.We grow enticeard God, responds the first.Piss up a rope, invites the second.Although both heads speak equably even in tones of reasonable address Wendell cringes backward even farther, then looks down and furiously resumes his futile work with the batteries and the handful of paper, which is now disappearing into the sweat-grimy tube of his fist.Dont mind em, Parkus says. I sure dont. scarcely hear em anymore, and thats the truth. Shut up, boys.The parrot falls silent.One heads Sacred, the others Profane, Parkus says. I keep em around just to remind me that He is interrupted by the sound of come up footsteps, and stands up again in a single lithe and easy movement. Jack and Sophie are approaching, holding hands with the perfect unconsciousness of children on their way to school. lively Jack cries, his face breaking into a grin.Why, Travelin Jack Parkus says, with a grin of his own. Well-met Look at you, sir youre all grown up.Jack rushes forward and throws his arms around Parkus, who hugs him back, and heartily. After a moment, Jack holds Parkus at arms length and studies him. You were older you looked older to me, at least. In both worlds.Still smiling, Parkus nods. And when he speaks again, it is in Speedy Parkers drawl. Reckon I did look older, Jack. You were j ust a child, telephone.But Parkus waves one hand. Sometimes I look older, sometimes not so old. It all depends on Age is wisdom, one head of the parrot says piously, to which the other responds, You senile old fuck. depends on the place and the circumstances, Parkus concludes, then says And I told you boys to shut up. You keep on, Im apt to twinge your scrawny neck. He turns his attention to Sophie, who is looking at him with wide, wondering eyes, as shy as a doe. Sophie, he says. Its wonderful to see you, darling. Didnt I say hed come? And here he is. Took a little longer than I expected, is all.She drops him a deep curtsey, all the way down to one knee, her head bowed. Thankee-sai, she says. get under ones skin in peace, gunslinger, and go your course along the Beam with my love.At this, Jack feels an odd, deep chill, as if many worlds had spoken in a harmonic tone, low but resonant.Speedy so Jack still thinks of him takes her hand and urges her to her feet. Stand up, girl , and look me in the eye. Im no gunslinger here, not in the borderlands, even if I do still carry the old iron from time to time. In any case, we have a lot to talk about. Thiss no time for ceremony. keep up over the rise with me, you two. We got to make palaver, as the gunslingers say. Or used to say, before the world moved on. I shot a good brace of shout out, and think theyll cook up just fine.What about Jack gestures toward the muttering, crouched heap that is Wendell Green.Why, he looks right busy, Parkus says. Told me hes a news hawk.Im afraid hes a little above himself, Jack replies. gray-headed Wendell heres a news vulture.Wendell turns his head a bit. He refuses to lift his eyes, but his lip curls in a sneer that may be more reflexive than real. Heard. That. He struggles. The lip curls again, and this time the sneer seems less reflexive. It is, in fact, a snarl. Gol. Gol. Gol-den boy. Holly. Wood.Hes managed to retain at least some of his charm and his joi de vivre, Ja ck says. bequeath he be okay here?Not much with ary brain in its head comes near the Little Sisters tent, Parkus says. Hell be okay. And if he smells somethin tasty on the breeze and comes for a look-see, why, I guess we can feed him. He turns toward Wendell. Were going just over yonder. If you want to come and visit, why, you just up and do her. Understand me, Mr. News Hawk?Wen. Dell. Green.Wendell Green, yessir. Parkus looks at the others. Come on. Lets mosey.We mustnt forget him, Sophie murmurs, with a look back. It will be dark in a few hours.No, Parkus agrees as they top the nearest rise. Wouldnt do to leave him beside that tent after dark. That wouldnt do at all.Theres more foliage in the declivity on the far side of the rise even a little ribbon of creek, presumably on its way to the river Jack can hear in the distance but it still looks more like northern Nevada than western Wisconsin. Yet in a way, Jack thinks, that makes sense. The last one had been no ordinary flip. He feels like a stone that has been skipped all the way across a lake, and as for poor Wendell To the right of where they descend the far side of the draw, a horse has been tethered in the shade of what Jack thinks is a Joshua tree. About twenty yards down the draw to the left is a circle of eroded stones. Inside it a fire, not yet lit, has been carefully laid. Jack doesnt like the look of the place much the stones remind him of ancient teeth. Nor is he alone in his dislike. Sophie stops, her grip on his fingers tightening.Parkus, do we have to go in there? Please say we dont.Parkus turns to her with a kindly smile Jack knows well a Speedy Parker smile for sure.The Speaking Demons been gone from this circle many the long age, darling, he says. And you know that such as yon are best for stories.Yet Nows no time to give in to the willies, Parkus tells her. He speaks with a trace of impatience, and willies isnt precisely the word he uses, but only how Jacks mind translates it. You wait ed for him to come in the Little Sisters hospital tent Only because she was there on the other side and now I want you to come along. All at once he seems taller to Jack. His eyes flash. Jack thinks A gunslinger. Yes, I suppose he could be a gunslinger. Like in one of Moms old movies, only for real.All right, she says, low. If we must. Then she looks at Jack. I wonder if youd put your arm around me?Jack, we may be sure, is happy to oblige.As they step between two of the stones, Jack seems to hear an ugly twist of mouth words. Among them, one voice is momentarily clear, seeming to leave a trail of slime behind it as it enters his ear Drudge drudge drudge, oho the bledding foodzies, soon he cummz, my good friend Mun-shun, and such a prize I have for him, oho, oho Jack looks at his old friend as Parkus hunkers by a tow sack and loosens the drawstring at the top. Hes close, isnt he? The Fisherman. And Black House, thats close, too.Yep, Parkus says, and from the sack he spills the g utted corpses of a dozen plump dead birds.Thoughts of Irma Freneau reenter Jacks head at the sight of the grouse, and he thinks he wont be able to eat. Watching as Parkus and Sophie skewer the birds on greensticks reinforces this idea. But after the fire is lit and the birds begin to brown, his stomach weighs in, insisting that the grouse smell wonderful and will probably taste even better. Over here, he remembers, everything always does.And here we are, in the speaking circle, Parkus says. His smiles have been put away for the nonce. He looks at Jack and Sophie, who sit side by side and still holding hands, with somber gravity. His guitar has been propped against a nearby rock. Beside it, Sacred and Profane sleeps with its two heads tucked into its feathers, dreaming its no doubt bifurcated dreams. The Demon may be long gone, but the legends say such things leave a eternal sleep that may lighten the tongue.Like kissing the Blarney Stone, maybe, Jack suggests.Parkus shakes his head . No blarney today.Jack says, If only we were dealing with an ordinary scumbag. That I could handle.Sophie looks at him, puzzled.He means a dust-off artist, Parkus tells her. A hardcase. He looks at Jack. And in one way, that is what youre dealing with. Carl Bier-stone isnt much an ordinary monster, lets say. Which is not to say he couldnt do with a spot of killing. But as for whats going on in cut Landing, he has been used. Possessed, youd say in your world, Jack. Taken by the spirits, wed say in the Territories Or brought low by pigs, Sophie adds.Yes. Parkus is nodding. In the world just beyond this borderland Mid-World they would say he has been infested by a demon. But a demon far greater than the poor, tattered spirit that once lived in this circle of stones.Jack hardly hears that. His eyes are glowing. It sounded something like beer stein, George Potter told him last night, a cardinal years ago. Thats not it, but its close.Carl Bierstone, he says. He raises a clenched fi st, then shakes it in triumph. That was his name in Chicago. Burnside here in French Landing. Case closed, game over, zip up your fly. Where is he, Speedy? Save me some time h Shut . . . up, Parkus says.The tone is low and almost deadly. Jack can feel Sophie shrink against him. He does a little shrinking himself. This sounds nothing like his old friend, nothing at all. You have to stop thinking of him as Speedy, Jack tells himself. Thats not who he is or ever was. That was just a character he played, someone who could both soothe and charm a panic-struck kid on the run with his mother.Parkus turns the birds, which are now browned nicely on one side and spitting juice into the fire.Im sorry to speak tart to you, Jack, but you have to realize that your Fisherman is pretty small fry compared to whats really going on.Why dont you tell Tansy Freneau hes small fry? Why dont you tell Beezer St. Pierre?Jack thinks these things, but doesnt say them out loud. Hes more than a little afraid of the light he saw in Parkuss eyes.Nor is it about Twinners, Parkus says. You got to get that idea out of your mind. Thats just something that has to do with your world and the world of the Territories a link. You cant kill some hardcase over here and end the career of your white shark over there. And if you kill him over there, in Wisconsin, the thing inside will just jump to another host.The thing ?When it was in Albert Fish, Fish called it the Monday Man. Fellow youre after calls it Mr. Munshun. Both are only ways of trying to say something that cant be pronounced by any sublunary tongue on any earthly world.How many worlds are there, Speedy?Many, Parkus says, looking into the fire. And this business concerns every one of them. Why else do you think Ive been after you like I have? send you feathers, sending you robins eggs, doing every damned thing I could to make you wake up.Jack thinks of Judy, scratching on walls until the tips of her fingers were bloody, and feels ashame d. Speedy has been doing much the same thing, it seems. Wake up, wake up, you dunderhead, he says.Parkus seems caught between reproof and a smile. For sure you must have seen me in the case that sent you running out of L.A.Ah, man why do you think I went?You ran like Jonah, when God told him to go preach against the wickedness in Nineveh. Thought I was gonna have to send a whale to come and swallow you up.I feel swallowed, Jack tells him.In a small voice, Sophie says I do, too.Weve all been swallowed, says the man with the gun on his hip. Were in the belly of the beast, like it or not. Its ka, which is destiny and fate. Your Fisherman, Jack, is now your ka. Our ka. This is more than murder. Much more.And Jack sees something that frankly scares the shit out of him. Lester Parker, a.k.a. Speedy, a.k.a. Parkus, is himself scared almost to death.This business concerns the blueish Tower, he says.Beside Jack, Sophie gives a low, desperate cry of terror and lowers her head. At the same t ime she raises one hand and forks the sign of the Evil Eye at Parkus, over and over.That gentleman doesnt seem to take it amiss. He simply sets to work play the birds again on their sticks. Listen to me, now, he says. Listen, and ask as few questions as you can. We still have a chance to get Judy Marshalls son back, but time is blowing in our teeth.Talk, Jack says.Parkus talks. At some point in his tale he resolve the birds done and serves them out on flat stones. The meat is tender, almost falling off the small bones. Jack eats hungrily, drinking deep of the sweet water from Parkuss waterskin each time it comes around to him. He wastes no more time comparing dead children to dead grouse. The furnace needs to be stoked, and he stokes it with a will. So does Sophie, eating with her fingers and licking them clean without the slightest reserve or embarrassment. So, in the end, does Wendell Green, although he refuses to enter the circle of old stones. When Parkus tosses him a golden-b rown grouse, however, Wendell catches it with remarkable adroitness and buries his face in the moist meat.You asked how many worlds, Parkus begins. The answer, in the High Speech, is da fan worlds beyond telling. With one of the blackened sticks he draws a figure eight on its side, which Jack recognizes as the Greek symbol for infinity.There is a Tower that binds them in place. Think of it as an axle upon which many wheels spin, if you like. And there is an entity that would bring this Tower down. drum Abbalah.At these words, the flames of the fire seem to momentarily darken and turn red. Jack wishes he could accept that this is only a trick of his overs wagon trained mind, but cannot. The Crimson office, he says.Yes. His physical being is pent in a cell at the top of the Tower, but he has another manifestation, every bit as real, and this lives in Can-tah Abbalah the Court of the Crimson King.Two places at once. Given his journeying between the world of America and the world of the Territories, Jack has little trouble swallowing this concept.Yes.If he or it destroys the Tower, wont that defeat his purpose? Wont he destroy his physical being in the process?Just the opposite hell set it free to wander what will then be chaos . . . din-tah . . . the furnace. Some parts of Mid-World have fallen into that furnace already.How much of this do I actually need to know? Jack asks. He is advised that time is fleeting by on his side of the wall, as well.Hard telling what you need to know and what you dont, Parkus says. If I leave out the wrong instal of information, maybe all the stars go dark. Not just here, but in a thousand thousand universes. Thats the pure hell of it. Listen, Jack the King has been trying to destroy the Tower and set himself free for time out of mind. Forever, mayhap. Its slow work, because the Tower is bound in place by crisscrossing force beams that act on it like guy wires. The Beams have held for millennia, and would hold for millennia to come, but in the last two hundred years thats speaking of time as you count it, Jack to you, Sophie, it would be Full-Earth almost five hundred times over So long, she says. Its almost a sigh. So very long.In the great sweep of things, its as short as the gleam of a single match in a dark room. But while good things usually take a long time to develop, evil has a way of popping up full-blown and ready-made, like Jack out of his box. Ka is a friend to evil as well as to good. It embraces both. And, speaking of Jack . . . Parkus turns to him. Youve heard of the Iron Age and the Bronze Age, of course?Jack nods.On the upper levels of the Tower, there are those who call the last two hundred or so years in your world the Age of Poisoned Thought. That means You dont have to explain it to me, Jack says. I knew Morgan Sloat, remember? I knew what he planned for Sophies world. Yes, indeed. The basic plan had been to turn one of the universes sweetest honeycombs into first a vacation spo t for the rich, then a source of semiskilled(prenominal) labor, and at long last a waste pit, probably radioactive. If that wasnt an example of poisoned thought, Jack doesnt know what is.Parkus says, Rational beings have always harbored telepaths among their number thats true in all the worlds. But theyre ordinarily rare creatures. Prodigies, you might say. But since the Age of Poisoned Thought came on your world, Jack infested it like a demon such beings have become much more common. Not as common as slow mutants in the Blasted Lands, but common, yes.You speak of mind readers, Sophie says, as if wanting to be sure.Yes, Parkus agrees, but not just mind readers. Precognates. Teleports world jumpers like old Travelin Jack here, in other words and telekinetics. Mind readers are the most common, telekinetics the rarest . . . and the most valuable.To him, you mean, Jack says. To the Crimson King.Yes. Over the last two hundred years or so, the abbalah has spent a good part of his ti me gathering a conclave of telepathic slaves. Most of them come from Earth and the Territories. All of the telekinetics come from Earth. This collection of slaves this gulag is his crowning achievement. We call them breaker. They . . . He trails off, thinking. Then Do you know how a cabin car travels?Sophie nods, but Jack at first has no idea what Parkus is talking about. He has a brief, lunatic vision of a fully equipped kitchen traveling down Route 66.Many oarsmen, Sophie says, then makes a rowing motion that throws her breasts into charming relief.Parkus is nodding. Usually slaves chained together. They From outside the circle, Wendell suddenly sticks his own oar in. Spart. Cus. He pauses, frowning, then tries it again. Spart-a-cus.Whats he on about? Parkus asks, frowning. Any idea, Jack?A movie called Spartacus, Jack says, and youre wrong as usual, Wendell. I believe youre thinking about Ben-Hur. sounding sulky, Wendell holds out his greasy hands. More. Meat.Parkus pulls t he last grouse from its sizzling stick and tosses it between two of the stones, where Wendell sits with his pallid, greasy face peering from between his knees. Fresh prey for the news hawk, he says. Now do us a favor and shut up.Or. What. The old defiant gleam is rising in Wendells eyes.Parkus draws his shooting iron partway from its holster. The grip, made of sandalwood, is worn, but the barrel gleams murder-bright. He has to say no more holding his second bird in one hand, Wendell Green hitches up his robe and hies himself back over the rise. Jack is extremely relieved to see him go. Spartacus indeed, he thinks, and snorts.So the Crimson King wants to use these Breakers to destroy the Beams, Jack says. Thats it, isnt it? Thats his plan.You speak as though of the future, Parkus says mildly. This is happening now, Jack. Only look at your own world if you want to see the ongoing disintegration. Of the six Beams, only one still holds true. Two others still generate some holding power. The other three are dead. One of these went out thousands of years ago, in the ordinary course of things. The others . . . killed by the Breakers. All in two centuries or less.Christ, Jack says. He is beginning to understand how Speedy could call the Fisherman small-fry.The job of protecting the Tower and the Beams has always belonged to the ancient war guild of Gilead, called gunslingers in this world and many others. They also generated a powerful psychic force, Jack, one fully capable of countering the Crimson Kings Breakers, but The gunslingers are all gone save for one, Sophie says, looking at the big pistol on Parkuss hip. And, with timid hope Unless you really are one, too, Parkus.Not I, darling, he says, but theres more than one.I thought Roland was the last. So the stories say.He has made at least three others, Parkus tells her. Ive no idea how that can be possible, but I believe it to be true. If Roland were still alone, the Breakers would have toppled the Tower long sin ce. But with the force of these others added to his I have no clue what youre talking about, Jack says. I did, sort of, but you lost me about two turns back.Theres no need for you to understand it all in order to do your job, Parkus says.Thank God for that.As for what you do need to understand, leave galleys and oarsmen and think in call of the Western movies your mother used to make. To begin with, imagine a fort in the desert.This Dark Tower you keep talking about. Thats the fort.Yes. And surrounding the fort, instead of wild Indians The Breakers. Led by Big Chief Abbalah.Sophie murmurs The King is in his Tower, eating bread and honey. The Breakers in the basement, making all the money.Jack feels a light but singularly unpleasant chill shake up his spine he thinks of rat paws scuttering over broken glass. What? Why do you say that?Sophie looks at him, flushes, shakes her head, looks down. Its what she says, sometimes. Judy. Its how I hear her, sometimes.Parkus seizes one of the charred greensticks and draws in the rocky dust beside the figure-eight shape. Fort here. Marauding Indians here, led by their merciless, evil and most likely insane chief. But over here Off to the left, he draws a harsh arrow in the dirt. It points at the rudimentary shapes indicating the fort and the besieging Indians. What always arrives at the last moment in all the best Lily Cavanaugh Westerns?The cavalry, Jack says. Thats us, I suppose.No, Parkus says. His tone is patient, but Jack suspects it is costing him a great effort to maintain that tone. The cavalry is Roland of Gilead and his new gunslingers. Or so those of us who want the Tower to stand or to fall in its own time dare hope. The Crimson King hopes to hold Roland back, and to finish the job of destroying the Tower while he and his band are still at a distance. That means gathering all the Breakers he can, especially the telekinetics.Is Tyler Marshall Stop interrupting. This is difficult enough without that.You used to be a hell of a lot cheerier, Speedy, Jack says reproachfully. For a moment he thinks his old friend is going to give him another tongue-lashing or perhaps even lose his temper completely and turn him into a frog but Parkus relaxes a little, and utters a laugh.Sophie looks up, relieved, and gives Jacks hand a squeeze.Oh, well, maybe youre right to hitch on my cord a little, Parkus says. Gettin all wound up wont help anything, will it? He touches the big iron on his hip. I wouldnt be surprise if wearin this thing has given me a few delusions of grandeur.Its a step or two up from amusement-park janitor, Jack allows.In both the Bible your world, Jack and the rule book of Good Farming yours, Sophie dear theres a scripture that goes something like ?For in my kingdom there are many mansions. Well, in the Court of the Crimson King there are many monsters.Jack hears a short, hard laugh bolt out of his mouth. His old friend has made a typically nonflavored policemans joke, it seems.They are the Kings courtiers . . . his knights-errant. They have all sorts of tasks, I imagine, but in these last years their chief job has been to happen upon talented Breakers. The more talented the Breaker, the greater the reward.Theyre headhunters, Jack murmurs, and doesnt realize the resonance of the term until its out of his mouth. He has used it in the business sense, but of course there is another, more literal meaning. Headhunters are cannibals.Yes, Parkus agrees. And they have mortal subcontractors, who work for . . . one doesnt like to say for the joy of it, but what else could we call it?Jack has a nightmarish vision then a cartoon Albert Fish standing on a New York sidewalk with a sign reading WILL WORK FOR FOOD. He tightens his arm around Sophie. Her blue eyes turn to him, and he looks into them gladly. They soothe him.How many Breakers did Albert Fish send his pal Mr. Monday? Jack wants to know. Two? Four? A dozen? And do they die off, at least, so the abbalah has to replace them?They dont, Parkus replies gravely. They are kept in a place a basement, yes, or a cavern where there is essentially no time.Purgatory. Christ.And it doesnt matter. Albert Fish is long gone. Mr. Monday is now Mr. Munshun. The deal Mr. Munshun has with your killer is a simple one this Burnside can kill and eat all the children he wants, as long as they are untalented children. If he should find any who are talented any Breakers they are to be turned over to Mr. Munshun at once.Who will take them to the abbalah, Sophie murmurs.Thats right, Parkus says.Jack feels that hes back on relatively solid ground, and is extremely glad to be there. Since Tyler hasnt been killed, he must be talented. ?Talented is hardly the word. Tyler Marshall is, potentially, one of the two most powerful Breakers in all the history of all the worlds. If I can briefly sink to the analogy of the fort surrounded by Indians, then we could say that the Breakers are like fire arrows shot over the walls . . . a new kind of warfare. But Tyler Marshall is no simple fire arrow. Hes more like a guided missile.Or a nuclear weapon.Sophie says, I dont know what that is.You dont want to, Jack replies. Believe me.He looks down at the scribble of drawings in the dirt. Is he surprised that Tyler should be so powerful? No, not really. Not after experiencing the aura of strength surrounding the boys mother. Not after meeting Judys Twinner, whose plain dress and manner cant conceal a character that strikes him as almost regal. Shes beautiful, but he senses that beauty is one of the least important things about her.Jack? Parkus asks him. You all right? Theres no time to be anythin else, his tone suggests.Give me a minute, Jack says.We dont have much t That has been made perfectly clear to me, Jack says, biting off the words, and he feels Sophie shift in surprise at his tone of voice. Now give me a minute. Let me do my job.From beneath a ruffle of green feathers, one of the parrots hea ds mutters God loves the poor laborer. The other replies Is that why he made so fucking many of them?All right, Jack, Parkus says, and cocks his head up at the set up.Okay, what have we got here? Jack thinks. Weve got a valuable little boy, and the Fisherman knows hes valuable. But this Mr. Munshun doesnt have him yet, or Speedy wouldnt be here. Deduction?Sophie, looking at him anxiously. Parkus, still looking up into the blameless blue sky above this borderland between the Territories what Judy Marshall calls Faraway and the Whatever Comes Next. Jacks mind is ticking faster now, picking up speed like an express train leaving the station. He is aware that the black man with the bald head is watching the sky for a certain malevolent crow. He is aware that the fair-skinned cleaning lady beside him is looking at him with the sort of fascination that could become love, given world enough and time. Mostly, though, hes lost in his own thoughts. They are the thoughts of a coppiceman.Now Bierstones Burnside, and hes old. Old and not doing so well in the cognition department these days. I think maybe hes gotten caught between what he wants, which is to keep Tyler for himself, and what hes promised this Munshun guy. Somewhere theres a fuddled, creaky, on the hook(predicate) mind trying to make itself up. If he decides to kill Tyler and stick him in the stewpot like the witch in Hansel and Gretel, thats bad for Judy and Fred. Not to mention Tyler, who may already have seen things that would drive a Marine combat vet insane. If the Fisherman turns the boy over to Mr. Munshun, its bad for everyone in creation. No wonder Speedy give tongue to time was blowing in our teeth.You knew this was coming, didnt you? he says. Both of you. You must have. Because Judy knew. Shes been weird for months, long before the murders started.Parkus shifts and looks away, uncomfortable. I knew something was coming, yes there have been great disruptions on this side but I was on other bus iness. And Sophie cant cross. She came here with the flying men and will go back the same way when our palavers done.Jack turns to her. You are who my mother once was. Im sure of it. He supposes he isnt being entirely clear about this, but he cant help it his mind is trying to go in too many directions at once. Youre Laura DeLoessians successor. The Queen of this world.Now Sophie is the one who looks uncomfortable. I was nobody in the great scheme of things, really I wasnt, and that was the way I desire it. What I did mostly was write letters of commendation and thank people for coming to see me . . . only in my official capacity, I always state ?us. I enjoyed walking, and sketching flowers, and cataloging them. I enjoyed hunting. Then, due to bad luck, bad times, and bad behavior, I found myself the last of the royal line. Queen of this world, as you say. Married once, to a good and simple man, but my Fred Marshall died and left me alone. Sophie the Barren.Dont, Jack says. He is s urprised at how deeply it hurts him to hear her refer to herself in this bitter, joking way.Were you not single-natured, Jack, your Twinner would be my cousin.She turns her slim fingers so that now she is gripping him instead of the other way around. When she speaks again, her voice is low and passionate. Put all the great matters aside. All I know is that Tyler Marshall is Judys child, that I love her, that Id not see her hurt for all the worlds that are. Hes the closest thing to a child of my own that Ill ever have. These things I know, and one other that youre the only one who can save him.Why? He has sensed this, of course why else in Gods name is he here? but that doesnt lessen his bewilderment. Why me?Because you touched the Talisman. And although some of its power has left you over the years, much still remains.Jack thinks of the lilies Speedy left for him in Dales bathroom. How the smell lingered on his hands even after he had given the bouquet itself to Tansy. And he reme mbers how the Talisman looked in the murmuring darkness of the Queens Pavilion, rising brightly, changing everything before it finally vanished.He thinks Its still changing everything.Parkus. Is it the first time hes called the other man the other coppiceman by that name? He doesnt know for sure, but he thinks it may be.Yes, Jack.Whats left of the Talisman is it enough? Enough for me to take on this Crimson King?Parkus looks shocked in spite of himself. Never in your life, Jack. Never in any life. The abbalah would blow you out like a candle. But it may be enough for you to take on Mr. Munshun to go into the furnace-lands and bring Tyler out.There are machines, Sophie says. She looks caught in some dark and unhappy dream. Red machines and black machines, all lost in smoke. There are great belts and children without number upon them. They trudge and trudge, turning the belts that turn the machines. Down in the foxholes. Down in the ratholes where the sun never shines. Down in the great caverns where the furnace-lands lie.Jack is shaken to the bottom of his mind and spirit. He finds himself thinking of Dickens not Bleak House but Oliver Twist. And, of course he thinks of his conversation with Transy Freneau. At least Irmas not there, he thinks. Not in the furnace-lands, not she. She got dead, and a mean old man ate her leg. Tyler, though . . . Tyler . . .They trudge until their feet bleed, he mutters. And the way there . . . ?I think you know it, Parkus says. When you find Black House, youll find your way to the furnace-lands . . . the machines . . . Mr. Munshun . . . and Tyler.The boy is alive. Youre sure of that.Yes. Parkus and Sophie speak together.And where is Burnside now? That information might speed things up a bit.I dont know, Parkus says.Christ, if you know who he was That was the fingerprints, Parkus says. The fingerprints on the telephone. Your first real idea about the case. The Wisconsin State Police got the Bierstone name back from the FBIs V ICAP database. You have the Burnside name. That should be enough.Wisconsin State Police, FBI, VICAP, database these terms come out in good old American English, and in this place they sound unpleasant and foreign to Jacks ear.How do you know all that?I have my sources in your world I keep my ear to the ground. As you know from personal experience. And surely youre cop enough to do the rest on your own.Judy thinks you have a friend who can help, Sophie says unexpectedly.Dale? Dale Gilbertson? Jack finds this a little hard to believe, but he supposes Dale may have uncovered something.I dont know the name. Judy thinks hes like many here in Faraway. A man who sees much because he sees nothing.Not Dale, after all. Its Henry shes talking about.Parkus rises to his feet. The heads of the parrot come up, unveil four bright eyes. Sacred and Profane flutters up to his shoulder and settles there. I think our palaver is done, Parkus says. It must be done. Are you ready to go back, my friend?Yes . And I suppose I better take Green, little as I want to. I dont think hed last long here.As you say.Jack and Sophie, still holding hands, are halfway up the rise when Jack realizes Parkus is still standing in the speaking circle with his parrot on his shoulder. Arent you coming?Parkus shakes his head. We go different ways now, Jack. I may see you again.If I survive, Jack thinks. If any of us survive.Meantime, go your course. And be true.Sophie drops another deep curtsey. Sai.Parkus nods to her and gives Jack Sawyer a little salute. Jack turns and leads Sophie back to the ruined hospital tent, wondering if he will ever see Speedy Parker again.Wendell Green ace reporter, fearless investigator, explicator of good and evil to the great unwashed sits in his former place, holding the crumpled foolscap in one hand and the batteries in the other. He has resumed muttering, and exactly looks up when Sophie and Jack approach.Youll do your best, wont you? Sophie asks. For her.And for you, J ack says. Listen to me, now. If this were to end with all of us still standing . . . and if I were to come back here . . . He finds he can say no more. Hes appalled at his temerity. This is a queen, after all. A queen. And hes . . . what? Trying to ask her for a date?Perhaps, she says, looking at him with her steady blue eyes. Perhaps.Is it a perhaps you want? he asks softly.Yes.He bends and brushes his lips over hers. Its brief, barely a kiss at all. It is also the best kiss of his life.I feel like fainting, she tells him when he straightens up again.Dont joke with me, Sophie.She takes his hand and presses it against the underswell of her left breast. He can feel her heart pounding. Is this a joke? If she were to run faster, shed catch her feet and fall. She lets him go, but he holds his hand where it is a moment longer, palm curved against that springing warmth.Id come with you if I could, she says.I know that.He looks at her, knowing if he doesnt get moving now, right away, he ne ver will. Its wanting not to leave her, but thats not all. The truth is that hes never been more frightened in his life. He searches for something mundane to bring him back to earth to slow the pounding of his own heart and finds the perfect object in the muttering creature that is Wendell Green. He drops to one knee. Are you ready, big boy? Want to take a trip on the mighty Mississip?Dont. Touch. Me. And then, in a just about poetic rush Fucking Hollywood assholeBelieve me, if I didnt have to, I wouldnt. And I plan to wash my hands just as soon as I get the chance.He looks up at Sophie and sees all the Judy in her. All the beauty in her. I love you, he says.Before she can reply, he seizes Wendells hand, closes his eyes, and flips.

American Bureaucracy and Its Budgetary Decisions

A calculate is a management tool that is an expression of planned expenditures and revenues. Budgets serve many important functions in g all overnment.In peerless sense, ciphers atomic number 18 contracts annually agreed on by the executive and legislative branches that allow executive agencies and departments to raise and spend public funds in specified ways for the coming fiscal year, as stated by Stillman in The American Bureaucracy He also says that budgets impose a interchangeable set of legal obligations between the elected and appointed officers of public organizations with regard to taxation and expenditure policies, on that pointfore, is a legal contract that provides a vehicle for fiscal controls over subordinate units of government by the politically elected representatives of the people.Budgetary conclusions are made, according to Rubin in her book The Politics of Public Budgeting, by envisioning governments as not merely technical managerial documents but rather t hey are also intrinsically and irreducibly political. Her ideas are similar to that of general budget concepts over balancing expenditures and revenues, but differ in fundamental ways according to Stillman.The open environss within which budgets are developed, the variety of actors involved, the constraints imposed as well as the emphasis on public accountability, give budgets special and distinctive features in the public sector. The differences between microbudgeting and macrobudgeting are just what their prefaces imply. On the one hand there are a number budget actors, who have all individual motivations, who strategize to get what they want from the budget. The focus on the actors and their strategies is called microbudgeting.They do not bargain with one another over the budget. They are assigned budget roles by the budget process, the issues they examine are often framed by the budget process, and the timing and coordination of their decisions are often regulated by the budg et process, according to Rubin. She goes on to say that actors are not free to come to budget agreements alone. They are bound by the environmental constraints.There are decisions that they are not permitted to make because they are either against the law, the courts disagree, or previous decision makers have bound their hands. Budgetary decision making has to account not just for budgetary actors but also for budget process and the environment. This more top-down and systematic perspective on budgeting is called macrobudgeting. Budget strategies are affected by environment, budget process, and individual strategies, all of which influence the fall outcomes.The level of certainty of funding influences strategies as well. Attention will focus on what is available now, and going after whatever it is, whether it is what you want or not, because what you really want may never show up and hence is not worth waiting for. The effect of different strategies on the outcomes is hard to gau ge. It seems obvious, however, that strategies that ignore the process or the environment are doomed to failure. Budget actors have to figure out where the flexibility is before they can influence how that flexibility will be used. Strategies that try to bypass superiors or fool legislators generally do not go bad strategies that involve careful documentation of need and appear to save money are generally more successful. There are four phases of a budget cycle environment, process, individual strategies, and outcomes. In this causal model, or schema, the environment, budget process, and individuals strategies all affect the outcomes. The environment influences budgetary outcomes directly and indirectly, through process and individual strategies. The environment influences outcomes directly, without going through either budget process or individual strategies, when it imposes emergencies that reorder priorities. The environment influences the budget process in several ways, includi ng the level of resources available, the stage of the budget, and the degree of centralization of decision making. Environment in the sense of the results of prior decisions may also influence process. Changes in process take place in response to individuals, committees, and branches of government jockeying for power in response to changes in the environment from rich to lean, or vice versa in response to changes in the power of liaison groups and in response to scandals or excesses of various kinds.

Organizational Structure in the Pharmaceuticals Industry

Industry Abstract Pfizer and Johnson & angstrom unit Johnson ar the largest and most successful pharmaceutical companies in the world today. Each company has a massive manpower and conducts billet in countries all over the globe. Both companies have used a high degree of horizontal differentiation in order to cook their business units more(prenominal) effectively. Operating companies argon grouped together by their function, as well as the type of product the produce. There are concerns nigh the lack of control that results from decentralization.The benefits, however, appear to outweigh the risks, as evidenced by the successes enjoyed by Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson. Organizational Structure in the Pharmaceuticals Industry Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer are both pharmaceutical companies that can be found near the top of the Fortune 500 list. Johnson & Johnson was ranked 33 and Pfizer 50 on this socio-economic classs list (Fortune 500, 2010). The complexity of this indus try requires a very large workforce with many specialized roles. More specialized roles in an arranging roar for more differentiation within the company.There is a great deal of all three types of differentiation within each company horizontal differentiation, vertical differentiation, and spacial differentiation. This high level of differentiation results in a very complex organizational structure (Nelson & sprightly, 2011). Globalization presents significant challenges to all organizations that operate in many different countries. These challenges are typically created by the cultural differences that may exist among the countries in which a company operates. Hofstede believes work-related attitudes are formed by vanadium dimensions of cultural differences.These dimensions are as follows individualism vs. collectivism, power distance, uncertainty avoidance, masculinity vs. femininity, and time orientation (Nelson & Quick, 2011). It is important for a company to consid er these dimensions when growth its organizational structure for the planetary marketplace. Johnson & Johnson owns more than 250 companies located in 57 countries. Each operating company is placed into one of three business segments consumer health care, medical devices and diagnostics, and pharmaceuticals (Company Structure, 2010).This classification is based on the types of products the company produces. The grouping of subsidiaries in this manner represents horizontal differentiation. Johnson & Johnson gives each operating company a fair amount of control within their environment. This decentralized structure can create concerns about lack of control, but at that place are benefits as well. As stated above, many of these companies are located outside of the United States. The decentralized structure yields much of the power to the leadership within each company and country, who are more familiar with the environment in which they are operative.Furthermore, decentralizat ion provides a great opportunity to develop employees. The leader of a smaller subsidiary may move to a larger sister company if he or she performs well. Innovation can in any case thrive in a decentralized environment. When plenty are developing ideas in independent environments, there is greater creativity. Innovation and creativity are paramount in the pharmaceuticals industry (Johnson & Johnson CEO, 2008). Pfizer, like Johnson & Johnson, utilizes a high degree of horizontal differentiation within its organizational structure.Like many companies, Pfizer has gone through several periods of restructuring over the past few years. The up-to-the-minute round of restructuring occurred after Pfizer acquired Wyeth in 2009. Pfizers operations can be split into two distinct categories research and global health care businesses (Pfizer Announces, 2009). afterwards the acquisition, Pfizer formed two separate research organizations. The PharmaTherapeutics Research Group focuses on s mall molecule research, while the BioTherapeutics Research Group concentrates on large molecules. at heart each group, small teams work on specific projects of high potential.This decentralized structure provides sharper focus and less bureaucracy for those working in this little field (Pfizer Announces, 2009). Upon acquiring Wyeth, Pfizer reorganized its operating companies into two diverse categories Pfizer BioPharmaceutical Businesses and Pfizer alter Businesses. Pfizer BioPharmaceutical Businesses contains five distinct biopharmaceutical businesses Primary Care, Specialty Care and Vaccines, Emerging Markets, Oncology, and Established Products. Pfizer Diversified Businesses is make up of four unique businesses Animal Health, Capsugel, Consumer Health, and Nutritional Health.Each of these nine businesses has clear expectations for results from initial product development to the end of the products heart cycle (Pfizer Announces, 2009). This type of decentralized environment pro vides employees with a sense of pride and ownership in their products. Each business is alike able to react more quickly and respond more directly to consumer needs in this decentralized structure (Besthof, 2009). While there are many benefits to a decentralized structure, there are also drawbacks as well. Management often times does not like to yield power and control to others, which may result in micro-managing.There is also concern whether the values and ethical standards of upper management are being practiced by those making criticial decisions. This may be of particular concern for situations in which it is difficult to monitor the activities of those trusted to make these decisions. When working in a global environment, however, the benefits of a decentralized structure certainly appear to outweigh the risks. Nelson and Quick believe the three biggest challenges facing managers today are globalization, diversity, and ethics (2011).All three of these issues are certainly pre sent in the pharmaceuticals industry, and in particular for large global companies such as Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson. Decentralization can be very beneficial for a company operating in a global environment. Managers working daily in that country should be actively involved in decision making, since they are most familiar with the environment. Operating globally can also bring diversity issues to the forefront. These issues can also be aided by decentralization, which allows situations to be addressed by those closest to them. Ethics is a major challenge in the pharmaceuticals industry.In a decentralized structure, upper management must be able to trust that others are doing things the right way. If they are not, the reputation of the entire organization may be damaged by the poor decisions of one person in a relatively minor role. Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson have many similarities in the structure of their organizations. Both companies utilize a high degree of horizontal d ifferentiation, some of which is required by their wide range of operations. Each company, however, has also made a commitment to allowing these business units to operate with a high degree of autonomy.ReferencesBesthof, Robert. (2009). Pfizer Makes Push in Ophthalmic Market With Restructuring, R&D Strategy. eyepiece Surgery News. Retrieved October 13, 2010, from http//www. osnsupersite. com/view. aspx? rid=42818 Business Wire. (2009, April 7).Pfizer Announces Operating Structure and Select Senior Leadership Posts to Be Effective Immediately Upon Close of Wyeth Acquisition. Retrieved October 13, 2010, from http//www. businesswire. com/news/home/20090407005717/en/Pfizer-Announces-Operating-Structure-Select-Senior-Leadership Fortune 500. (2010).Retrieved October 7, 2010, from http//money. nn. com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2010/industries/21/index. html Johnson & Johnson. (October 2010).Company Structure. Retrieved October 11, 2010, from http//www. jnj. com/connect/about-jnj/ company-structure emailprotected (2008, June 25).Johnson & Johnson CEO William Weldon Leadershipin a Decentralized Company. Retrieved October 11, 2010, from http//knowledge. wharton. upenn. edu/article. cfm? articleid=2003 Nelson, D. L. , & Quick, J. C. (2011).Oranizational behavior Science, the real world, and you. Mason, OH South-Western Cengage Learning.

The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove Chapter 22~23

Twenty-twoTheoThe w eachs of mollies trailer were plastered with picture show posters. He stood in the middle of the living elbow room among the scattered videotapes, magazines, and junk mail and slowly turned. It was her, Molly. She hadnt been lying all this time. Most of the posters were in foreign languages, but e very one featured a jr. Molly in various states of undress, holding weapons or fighting take bad guys, her hair flying in the wind, a nuked-out city or a desert littered with hu gentlemans gentleman skulls and burned-out cars in the background.The adolescent male part of Theo, the part that every man tries to bury but carries to his grave, reared up. She was a plastic film star. A hot movie star And he knew her, had in fact put handcuffs on her. If in that respect was only a locker room, a street corner, or a second-period study hall w present he could brag intimately it to his friends. But he didnt really become any friends, except for Gabe maybe, and Gabe was a grown-up. The prurient moment passed and Theo felt guilty about the way he had set Molly patronizing her and condescending to her the way many race treated him when he tried to be some(prenominal)thing besides a pothead and puppet.He kneeled down to a bookshelf filled with videotapes, found one labeled KENDRA WARRIOR BABE OF THE OUT dirt (ENGLISH), and slipped it into the VCR and turned on the television. Then he turned off the lights, laid his guns on the coffee table, and coif down on Mollys couch to wait. He watched as the Crazy Lady of Pine Cove battled mu topazts and Sand Pi stages for half(prenominal) an hour before he drifted off to sleep. His mind bespeaked a deeper escape from his problems than the movie could provide.Hi, Theo.He came awake startled. The movie was still casting a flickering light everywhere the room, so he couldnt have been sleeping that broad. She stood in the door, half in shadow, smell very much corresponding the woman on the television scree n. She held an assault rifle at her side.Molly, Ive been waiting for you.Howd you corresponding it? She nodded toward the television.Loved it. I never realized. I was just so tiredMolly nodded. I wont be long, I just came to get some clean clothes. Youre welcome to balk here.Theo didnt k today what to do. It didnt seem like the time to grab one of the pistols off the table. He felt more embarrassed than threatened.Thanks, he said.Hes the last one, Theo. After him in that location arent any more of his kind. His time has passed. I think thats what we have in common. You dont know what it is to be a has-been, do you?I think Im what they call a never-was.Thats easier. At least youre always looking up the ladder, not down. Coming down is kaleier.How? Why? What is he?Im not sure, a dragon maybe. Who knows? She leaned back against the doorway and sighed. But I posterior kinda tell what hes persuasion. I guess its because Im nuts. Who would have thought that would come in handy, huh?D ont say that about yourself. Youre saner than I am.Molly laughed, and Theo could see her movie-star teeth shine in the light of the television. Youre a neurotic, Theo. A neurotic is someone who thinks something is wrong with him, but everyone else thinks he is normal a psycho thinks somethings wrong with her. give birth a poll of the locals, I think Id come out in the latter category, dont you?Molly, this is really dangerous stuff youre messing with.He wont yen me.Its not just that. You could go to jail just for having that machine gun, Molly. People are getting butchered, arent they?In a manner of speaking.Thats what happened to Joseph Leander, and the guys working the drug lab, proficient? Your pal ate them?They were going to hurt you, and Steve was hungry. Seemed like great timing to me.Molly, thats murderTheo Im nuts. What are they going to do to me?Theo shrugged his shoulders and sit back on the couch. I dont know what to do.Youre not in a position to do anything right now . Get some rest.Theo cradled his head in his hands. His cell echo, still in the hammock of his flannel shirt, began ringing. I could sure use a hit right now.Theres some Smurfs of Sanity in the cupboard over the sink neuroleptics Dr. Val gave me, antipsychotics theyve done wonders for me.Obviously.Your phone is ringing.Theo pulled out the phone, flipped it open, hit the answer button and watched as the incoming number ap peared on the display. It was Sheriff Burtons cell phone number. Theo hit disconnect.Im fucked, Theo said.Molly picked up Theos .357 Magnum from the table, held it on Theo, whence picked up Joseph Leanders automatic. Ill give these back before I go. Im going to get some clean clothes and some girlie things out of my bedroom. You be okey here?Yeah, sure. His head was still hung. He spoke into his lap.Youre bumming me out, Theo.Sorry.Molly was gone from the room for only five minutes, in which time Theo tried to get a handle on what had happened. Molly returned with a duffel bag slung over her shoulder. She was wearing the Kendra costume, com-plete with thigh-high boots. Even in the dim light from the television, Theo could see a ragged scar over her breast. She caught him looking.Ended my career, she said. I suppose now they could fix it, but its a little late.Im sorry, Theo said. I think you look beautiful.She smiled and shifted both of the pistols to one hand. Shed remaining the assault rifle by the door and Theo hadnt even noticed. You ever ascertain special, Theo?Special?Not like youre better than everyone else, just that youre different in a good way, like it makes a difference that youre on the planet? You ever feel that way?I dont know. No, not really.I had that for a while. Even though they were cheesy B movies and even though I had to do some humiliating things to get into them, I felt special, Theo. Then it went away. Well, now I feel that way again. Thats why.Why what?You asked me why before. Thats why Im going back to Steve .Steve? You call him Steve?He looked like a Steve, Molly said. I have to go. Ill leave your guns in the bed of that red truck you stole. Dont try to follow, okay?Theo nodded. Molly, dont let it kill anybody else. Promise me that.Promise to leave us alone?I cant do that.Okay. Take care of yourself. She grabbed the assault rifle, kicked open the door, and stepped out.Theo heard her go down the steps, pause, then come back up. She popped her head in the door. Im sorry you never felt special, Theo, she said.Theo coerce a smile. Thanks, Molly.GabeGabe stood in the foyer of Valerie Riordans home, looking at his hiking boots, then the white carpet, then his boots again. Val had gone into the kitchen to get some wine. Skinner was wandering around outside.Gabe sit down on the marble substructure, unlaced his boots, then slipped them off. Hed once been into a level-nine clean room at a biotech facility in San Jose, a draw a bead on where the air was scrubbed and filtered down to the micro n and you had to wear a plastic bunny suit with its own air umbilical to avoid contaminating the specimens. Strangely, hed had a similar tone to the one he was feeling now, which was I am the harbinger of filth. Thank God Theo had made him shower and change before his date.Val came into the sink living room carrying a tray with a bottle of wine and two glasses. She looked up at Gabe, who was standing at the edge of the stairs as if make water to wade into molten lava.Well, come on in and have a seat, Val said.Gabe took a tentative step. Nice place, he said.Thanks, I still have a lot to do on it. I suppose I should just hire a decorator and have done with it, but I like finding pieces myself. rectify, Gabe said, taking an other(a) step. You could play handball in this room if you didnt mind destroying a lot of antiques.Its a cabernet from Wild Horse Vineyard over the hill. I hope you like it. Val poured the wine into stemmed bubble glasses. She took hers and sat down on the velvet couch, then raised her eyebrows as if to say, Well?Gabe joined her at the other end of the couch, then took a tentative sip of the wine. Its nice.For a local cheapie, Val said.An awkward silence passed between them. Val made a show of savour the wine again, then said, You dont really swear this stuff about a sea monster, do you, Gabe?Gabe was relieved. She cute to speech about work. Hed been afraid that she would want to talk about something else anything else and he didnt really know how. Well, there are the tracks, which look very authentic, so if they are fake, whoever did them studied fossil tracks and replicated them perfectly. Then theres the timing of the rat migration, plus Theo and your patient. Estelle, was it?Val set down her wine. Gabe, I know youre a scientist, and a discovery like this could make you rich and famous, but I just dont believe theres a dinosaur in town.Rich and famous? I hadnt thought about it. I guess there would be some recognition, wouldnt there ?Look, Gabe, you deal in hard facts, but every day I deal with the delusions and constructions of peoples minds. They are just tracks on the ground, probably like that Bigfoot hoax in Washington a few years ago. Theo is a chronic drug user, and Estelle and her boyfriend Catfish are artist types. They all have overactive imaginations.Gabe was put off by her judgment of Theo and the others. He thought for a second, then said, As a biologist, I have a theory about imagination. I think its bewitching obvious that fear fear of loud noises, fear of heights, the capacity to learn fear is something that weve adapted over the years as a survival mechanism, and so is imagination. Everyone thinks that it was the big strong caveman who got the girl, and for the most part, that may have been true, but physical strength doesnt explain how our species cre-ated civilization. I think there was always some scrawny breathing iner sitting at the edge of the firelight, who had the ability to imagine dangers, to look into the future in his imagination and see possibilities, and therefore sur-vived to pass his genes on to the next generation. When the big ape men ended up running off the cliff or getting killed while trying to beat a mas-todon into submission with a stick, the dreamer was standing back thought, Hey, that efficacy work, but you need to run the mastodon off the cliff. And, then hed mate with the women left over after the go-getters got killed.So nerds rule, Val said with a smile. But if fear and imagination make you more highly evolved, then someone with paranoid delusions would be popular opinion the world. Val was getting into the theory of it now. How strange to talk to a man who talked about ideas, not property and personal agendas. Val liked it. A lot.Gabe said, Well, we didnt miss that by far-off with Hitler, did we? Evolution takes some missteps sometimes.Big teeth worked pretty well for a while, then they got too big. Mastodons tusks got so large they would snap the animals neck. And youve probably noticed that there are no saber-toothed cats around anymore.Okay, Ill buy that imagination is an evolutionary leap. But what about economic crisis? Talking about mental conditions, she couldnt help thinking about what shed done to her patients. Her crimes circled in her mind, trying to get out. Psychiatry is looking more and more at mental conditions from a physical point of view, so that fits. Thats why were treating depres-sion with drugs like Prozac. But what evolutionary purpose is there for depression?Ive been thinking about that since you mentioned it at dinner, Gabe said. He drained his wineglass and moved closer to her on the couch, as if by being closer, she would share in his excitement. He was in his element now. A lot of animals besides humans get depressed. Higher mammals like dolphins and whales can die from it, but even rats seem to get the Blues. I cant underframe out what purpose it serves. But in humans it mogul be like come nearsightedness civilization has protected a biological weakness that would have been weeded out by natural dangers or predators.Predators? How?I dont know. Depression might slow the prey down, make it react less quickly to danger. Who knows?So a predator might actually evolve that preyed on depressed animals? Right and its me, Val thought. If I havent been preying on depressed people, what have I been doing? She suddenly felt ashamed of her home, of the pure materialism of it. Here was an incredibly bright man who was interested with the pure pursuit of knowledge, and she had sold her integrity for some antiques and a Mercedes.Gabe poured himself another glass of wine and sat back now, thinking as he spoke. evoke idea. I suppose there could be some sort of chemical or behavioral stimulus that would trigger preying on the depressed. Low serotonin levels lead to raise libido, right? At least temporarily?Yes, Val said. Thats why the entire town has turned into horndogs, she thought.Therefore, Gabe continued, youd have more animals mating and passing on the depression gene. Nature tends to evolve mechanisms to remain in balance. A predator or a disease would naturally evolve to keep the depressed population down. Interesting, Ive been feeling especially horny lately, I wonder if Im depressed. Gabes eyes snapped open wide and he looked at Val with the full-blown terror of what he had just said. He gulped his wine, then said, Im sorry, IVal couldnt stand it anymore. Gabes faux pas opened the gate, and she stepped through it. Gabe, we have to talk.Im really sorry, I didnt mean toShe grabbed his arm to stop him. No, I have to tell you something.Gabe braced himself for the worst. Hed fallen out of the lofty world of theory into the awkward, gritty world of first dates, and she was going to drop the Dont get the wrong idea bomb on him.She gripped his arm and her nails dug into his bicep hard enough to make him wince.She said, A little over a month ago, I took almost a third of the people in Pine Cove off antidepressants.Huh? That wasnt at all what hed expected. My God, why?Because of Bess Leanders suicide. Or what I thought was her suicide. I was just going through the motions in my practice. create verbally prescriptions and collecting fees. She explained about her arrangement with Winston Krauss and how the pharmacist had refused to put everyone back on the drugs. When she finished, to wait for his judgment, there were tears welling up in her eyes.He put his mail around her tentatively, hoping it was the right thing to do. Why tell me this?She melted against his chest. Because I trust you and because I have to tell someone and because I need to figure out what to do. I dont want to go to jail, Gabe. Maybe all my patients didnt need to be on antidepressants, but a lot of them did. She sobbed on his shoulder and he began to stroke her hair, then pushed up her chin and kissed her tears.Itll be okay. It will.She looked up into his eyes, as if looking for a hint of disdain, then not finding it, she kissed him hard and pulled him on top of her on the couch.A Higher PowerAnd they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? Revelation 134Twenty-threeSteveWhat horrors can a dragon dream? A instrument who has, in his own way, ruled the planet for millions of years, a creature for whom the mingy man mammals have built temples, a creature who has known no predator but time what could he possibly dream that would frighten him? Call it the penetrating?Under a stand of oak trees, rideually satisfied and with a bellyful of drug dealers, the dragon dreamed a vision of time past. The eternal now that he had always known suddenly had history. In the dream he saw himself as a larva, tucked into the protective pouch under his mothers applauder until it was safe to venture out under her watchful eye. He saw the hunting and the mating, the forms he had learned to mimic as his mercurial DNA evolved not through generations, but through regeneration of cells. He saw the mates he had eaten, the three young he had borne as a female, the last killed by a warmblood who sang the Blues. He remembered the chan-ging, not so long ago, from female to male, and he remembered all of it in pictures, not in mere instinctual patterns and conditioned responses.He saw these pictures in the dream, brought on by the strange mating with the warmblood, and he wondered why. For the first time in his five thousand years, he asked, Why? And the dream answered with a picture of all the oceans and swamps, the rivers and bogs and trenches and mountains beneath the sea, and they were all empty of his kind. As sure as if he were floating through the cold black at the end of the universe, where light gives up hope and time chases its tail until it dies from exhaustion, he was alone.Sex does that to some guys.ValOh my God, the rat brains Gabe shouted.It wa s a different response to lovemaking. Val wasnt sure that she might not be hurt, feeling vulnerable as she was, with her knees in the vicinity of her ears, a biologist on top of her, and her panty hose waving off one foot like a tattered battle flag.Gabe collapsed into her arms and she looked over his shoulder to the coffee table to check that they hadnt kicked the wineglasses off onto the carpet.Are you okay? she asked, a little breathless.Im sorry, but I just realized whats going on with this creature.Thats what you were thinking about? Yes, her feelings were definitely hurt.No, not during. It came to me in a bourgeon right after. Somehow the creature can attract mammals with lower than normal serotonin levels. And youve got, what, a third of the population running around in antidepressant withdrawal?She was pissed now, not hurt. She dumped him off her onto the floor, stood up, pulled her skirt down, and stepped away. He scrambled into his pants and looked around for his shirt, w hich lay in shreds behind the couch.He had a tan that ended at the neckline and just below the shoulders the rest of him was milk white. He looked up at her from the gap between the couch and the coffee table with a pleading in his eyes, as if he were looking up from a coffin in which he was about to be buried alive.Sorry, he said.He wasnt looking her in the eye, and Val suddenly realized that he was talking to her exposed breasts. She pulled her blouse closed, and a battery of insults rose in her mind, ready to be fired, but all of them were mean-spirited and would serve to do nothing but make them both feel ashamed. He was who he was, and he was honest and real, and she knew that he hadnt meant to hurt her. So she cried. Thinking, Great, scream is what got me into this in the first place.She plopped down on the couch with her face in her hands. Gabe moved to her side and put his arm around her. Im really sorry. Im not very good at this sort of thing.Youre fine. Its just too much. I should go. He started to stand.She caught his arm in a death grip. You go and Ill hunt you down and kill you like a rabid dog.Ill stay.No go, she said. I understand.Okay, Ill go.Dont you dare. She threw her arms around him and kissed him hard, pulling him back down onto the couch, and within seconds they were all over each other again.Thats it, she thought, no more crying. Its the crying that does it. This guy is aroused by my pain.But soon they lay in a panting sweaty pile on the floor and the idea of crying was light-years away.And this time Gabe said, That was wonderful.Val noticed a wineglass overturned by her head, a cabernet stain bleeding over the carpet. Is it salt or club pop music?Gabe pulled away far enough to look into her eyes and saw that she was looking at the stained carpet. Salt and cold water, I think. Or is that blood? A drop of sweat dripped off his forehead onto her lips.She looked at him. You werent thinking about that creature that doesnt exist, were you?Ju st you.She smiled. Really?And a weed-whacker, for some reason.Youre kidding.Uh, yes, Im kidding. I was only thinking of you.So you dont think Im a horrible person for what Ive done?You were trying to do what you thought was right. How could that be horrible?I feel horrible.Its been a long time. Im out of practice.No, not about this. About my patients. You really think something could be preying on them?Its just a theory. There may not even be a creature.But what if there is? Shouldnt we call the National Guard or something?I was thinking of calling Theo.Theo isnt even a real cop.He deserves to know.They lay there in silence for a few minutes, staring at the spreading stain on the carpet, feeling the sweat run down their ribs, and sense of hearing to the beat of each others hearts.Gabe? Val whispered.Yes.Maybe we should go to couples counseling.Should we get dressed first?You were serious about the weed-whacker, werent you?I dont know where that image came from.Theres supposed to be a good couples guy in San Junipero, unless youd rather go to a woman counselor.I thought we were going to call the National Guard.Only if it comes to that, Val said. Thinking, When we tell the undertake about this, Im leaving out the part about the wine spilling.TheoIs there anything more irritating than people who have just been laid? Especially when you have not. Not for a long time.Oh, it was obvious as soon as they came through Mollys front door, waking Theo for the second time that night Gabes grin looking like the oversized grill on an old Chrysler, Val Riordan wearing jeans and almost no makeup the both of them giddy and giggling and blushing like children. Theo wanted to puke. He was happy for them, but he wanted to puke.What? Theo said.Gabe was obviously amped and trying not to show it. He put his hands in his pockets to keep from waving them around. I he looked at Val and smiled we think that this creature, if it exists, may be attracted to prey with low serum serotoni n levels.Gabe bounced on the balls of his feet as he waited for his statement to sink in. Theo sat there, staring at him, with no discernible change in expres-sion from the weariness hed worn since they came through the door. He guessed that he was supposed to say something now.Molly was here, Theo said. The creature exists. It ate Mikey Plotznik, and Joseph Leander, and who knows who else? She said its a dragon.Gabes grin dropped. Thats great. I mean, thats horrible, but its great from a scientific point of view. I have another theory about this species. I think it has some specialized mechanism to affect its prey. Have you been horny lately?Theres no need to be arrogant, Gabe. Im glad you two had a good time, but theres no need to rub it in.No no, you dont get it. Gabe went on to explain about Val Riordans decision to take her patients off antidepressants and how the lowering of serotonin levels could lead to increased libido. So Pine Cove has been full of horny people.Right, Theo said. And I still cant get a date.Val Riordan laughed and Theo glared at her. Gabe said, The rats I found alive near this trailer, where we think the creature might have been, were mating when I found them. There are some species of carnivorous plants that give off a sex pheromone that attracts their prey. In some species, the behavior of the male a display, a dance, a scent will stimulate the ovaries in the female of the species without any physical contact. I think thats whats happened to us.Our ovaries are being stimulated? Theo rubbed sleep from his eyes. I gotta be honest with you, Gabe. Im not feeling it.Val turned to Gabe. Thats not very romantic.Its incredibly exciting. This may be the most elegant predator that the world has ever seen.Theo shook his head. I have no home, no job, no car, theres probably a reassert out for my arrest, and you want me to be excited over the fact that we have a monster in town that makes you horny so he can eat you? Sorry, Gabe, Im missing t he positive side of this.Val chimed in, It may be the reason that youve been able to quit smoking pot so easily.Pardon me? Easily? Theo wanted to jump off the couch and bitch-slap them both.Were you ever able to go this long before?She could be right, Theo, Gabe said. If this thing affects serotonin, it could affect other neurotransmitters.Oh good, Theo said. Lets open a care for clinic. Well feed half of the patients to the monster and the other half will recover. I cant wait.Theres no need to be sarcastic, Gabe said. Were just trying to help.Help? Help with what? discontinue fight? I can handle it. Skateboard theft? Im on it. But my law enforcement experience hasnt prepared me for dealing with this.Thats true, Gabe, Val said. Theos little more than a rent-a-cop. Maybe we should call the sheriff or the FBI or the National Guard.And tell them what? Theo asked. Rent-a-cop? Im not even that now, he thought.He has a point. Gabe said. We havent seen anything.That old Blues singer has, Val said.Theo nodded. We need to find him. Maybe hellHes living with Estelle Boyet, Val said. I have her address in my office.