August the twenty-ninth, TWO THOUSAND AND ONE. I've been fasting and making penance on the Tampa for THREE days, on and on again, for Babel, Sodom and Gomorrah. The Australian net is tightening around our lives by the minute. The words have already been written: The Iliad will get the better of our Odyssey. But who cares for the epilogue when the story is written by children left behind, I will make up my own world. I am deciding. I'll start today. Sarah and I will have the kind of world we wanna have. FORTY years? That's too long! TEN years? That’s too long! I'd rather live a few days with her who loves me for what I am, than an eternity longing for what I was. And since "they" don't have enough of one life to curse and damn us, I’d rather laugh at the TEN plagues with her and spit on their commandments now. On the deck, we behold the invincible armada, the great and most fortunate navy that faces us. On their side, threats strike like bundles of matches, and foretell the swarm of furious bullets, sharp and pointed like stinging bees. Faced to the heart snatcher, the dilemma is incontrovertible: Live like a beast or die like a man of good. Live on love and sulfur, or croak fearing neither God nor man.