Science Proves Religion

I'm having a problem with YouTube. Sometimes when I try to post a comment under a video, it doesn't save, and I'm forced to discard it. So I'm watching an interview with Penn Jillette and there's this guy calls himself BaneOfFreeSpeech. I don't know what the conversation was before this guy cuz YouTube's idea of a message board for videos is not intended for actual text communication. You're just supposed to comment on the video, not go into serious discussions about religion or science, but this BaneOfFreeSpeech guys says.

"this wont matter when science proves religion is a joke."

This is what I wanted to say in response.

What are you talking about!?

Galileo proved the Earth is not the center of the universe hundreds of years ago. The Pope's response was to excommunicate him, and then make him kiss his ring. Astronomy has proven there's no heaven. There's no throne in the clouds where God's hanging out. Yet ppl still believe!

Science HAS proven religion is a joke. A LACK of evidence is NOT evidence. The jury is not still out on evolution versus creationism. Yet religion is more powerful now than ever before.

I have been looking at atheism recently like it's a bottomless pit. I was born and raised a Christian. I don't know any other way. The past several years I've been standing on a precipice of Deism, looking back at what I see now as a very badly done magic trick and I'm looking forward at a big black nothing. Dark Matter is less imposing and scary than believing in nothing.

Belief in something that's not there isn't an answer. Belief in nothing being there is not an answer. Waiting for a third answer that actually is the answer? That's not working either. And if it came along, I'd be sceptical of it anyway.

There are a lot of things which forced me to put into question all my beliefs. If I've stopped being a Christian, it's not because I want to stop being a Christian.

I understand how Tarzan felt when Jane explained to him "there's a reason why they're all hairier than you are, dear. You're not one of them."

But Tarzan had Jane. And the Big City. And a deal for multiple movies and television shows and he got to be on lunchboxes. He was also fictional, which took the edge off the knowledge that everything he had known up to that point was fictional.

Atheists offer Ex-believers NOTHING but just a bottomless pit of this is what you want this is what you get. You honestly believe science WILL prove religion is a joke? It already did. The problem is, there's no punchline. It's a very bad joke.

Police Statuary

Last week I was walking downtown Dallas towards the Rosa Parks Memorial because I had to catch a bus. The first thing I noticed were the cop cars. The second thing I noticed were rainbow flags and picket signs but I don't recall being able to read what they said. To be honest, I was more concerned about the cop cars. Two of them were parked where my bus was going to be in ten minutes. I walked over to one of the cops and asked him politely if this demonstration was stopping the busses or if they were going to stop somewhere else. He glanced back at the cars and gave a sort of noncommittal answer. I continued on to my bus stop and looked around.

There were about a dozen people standing around Rosa Parks' statue. I couldn't tell what they were demonstrating about. Based on the rainbow colors in the banners and signs they'd already taken down, my first thought was towards the Rainbow Coalition, which has roots in the Black Civil Rights movement but was later usurped by homosexuals. I should point out that I don't recall a single black person among the demonstrators. They were all white. Nothing wrong with that, but I didn't understand why a bunch of white gay people would be encircled around Rosa Parks. I'm sure there's a reasonable answer. I didn't care. I was waiting for my bus.

I believe in the right to free speech, but these individuals didn't seem to be speaking. They were just milling about. I soon realized that whatever it was they had been doing, they had already finished, and were just kinda packing up and comparing notes. The police were not 'in force' but they weren't sparse either. I'd guess there were about two demonstrators per cop. Some time later, on the Internet, I found myself reading a message board in which some nameless faceless somebody accused America of being a Police State. That phrase brought me back to this moment.

Standing there in the Dallas August sun, looking at the smiling face of Rosa Parks, permanently captured in bronze, smiling at whomever passes by regardless of race color creed or sexual orientation - a newly adopted hostess to downtown Dallas, surrounded by a bunch of white folk using her to underline whatever message they had, and those individuals surrounded by police. Surrounding the police? Well... Dallas. Us. All of us.

Walking up to the plaza and witnessing the aftermath of this little spectacle (one that no doubt the participants believe have somehow paved the way for resolutions towards whatever message they spouted that day but objectively speaking was a complete waste of their time and taxpayer dollars) one might have inferred that this is a police state. People gather together in public to make a statement and are immediately flanked by police officers. That causes one to pause and think that maybe the conspiracy theorists are right and we do live in a police state.

But if you looked at the demonstrators you'd realize these are not the people that could potentially cause trouble. Gay people standing in the middle of Dallas speaking their minds would tend to cause other nongay people to get angry. The demonstrators were mostly thin and frail and looked like they'd never eaten a hamburger in their lives. They're not a threat. However, if what they had to say pissed off someone who was not thin or frail and whose diet consisted of meat and beer and pharmaceuticals, then there might be trouble. The police were not there to stop the demonstrators from speaking. They were there to protect the demonstrators from people like me who would much rather catch a bus than listen to weirdoes carrying signs and banners in the middle of the Dallas August sun. I personally had no interest in accosting the demonstrators, but if I had such an impetus, I'd be the one hogtied on the ground; not them.

Police state? Who is policing whom? The cops weren't there to start a war. They were there to keep the peace. Sometimes that means meeting resistance with equal force. Sometimes that just means standing there and looking like statues themselves. Police state? Only someone who has never actually lived in a real police state would imagine that America is one currently. I'm not saying we're twelve to midnight, but at least in the small arena of the Rosa Parks Plaza, we're far from the End of the World.

Lost Again ...Naturally

Well it's that time again. The leaves are not yet turning colors. The temperature outside is not quite yet lowering. The MDA Telethon for Jerry's kids has not started yet. The fall season on television is several steps away from just around the corner, and no one watches television anymore anyway cuz we all watch on the Internet. Most importantly, ABC's hit television series LOST goes into its sixth and final season yet another six months from now. Boy. It seems like only yesterday and three months ago when it was nine months from now. My how time crawls.

Back during ComicCon there were rumblings about some kind of ARG (Alternate Reality Game for those of you who didn't know) that dealt with this sixth and final season. It's underway as of last night. Some kind of alleged "Dharma" party in California. There's also velvet paintings involved. I've been trying to follow along but it's making about as much sense as... well, anything else that has anything to do with LOST.

Let's take a gander at how far we've come and how little we've traveled.

The first ARG was great. In hindsight some would probably think The Lost Experience was terrible, but I have many fond memories following along with that one; particularly the story as it surrounded a young brunette named Rachel. You can still find the exploits of Rachel Blake over at YouTube if you search her name. I thought Jamie Silberhartz as Rachel Blake was outstanding. I'm disappointed that her career didn't take off after that performance, but apparently I'm the only one on the planet who thinks she was awesome. People don't appreciate improvisational acting unless there's a punchline every other second. Drew Carey saw to that. Jamie Silberhartz was for improv what a dancer is for ballet. She made it look effortless, but that was not easy what she did back there.

It reminds me of the actors who made The Blair Witch Project a success. Largely forgotten today, the original plan by the producers was to use that footage as a part of the telling of their bigger mythology, but when they cobbled the footage together they realized that from the twenty plus hours of footage captured by three actors with little to no experience behind the camera, they actually had enough material to make a full length film, riding solely on the performances of these three young talents. It really looked like build up to a snuff film. The only thing they didn't have were bodies. Some careful producing choices for the final act took care of that: less is more. The end result was a great horror story with very little gore. Hitchcock could not have done better under those circumstances, and I do not say that lightly. However, the producers got lucky. What makes Blair Witch work is the combined chemistry of Heather Donahue, Joshua Leonard, and Michael Williams.

When people learned that it wasn't really a snuff film, they blew it off, and now no one talks about it. I still place that film in my top ten, predominantly because I found Heather Donahue's improvisational performance to be real, heartfelt, gut wrenching, sincere, energized, and downright fun in a very sad creepy way. She is our Captain Ahab hunting down the whale. We believe she's the kind of person to lead these other two guys towards their doom. She's a determined young woman hellbent on fulfilling her fantasy as a documentarian to the point of refusing to admit when she's wrong until it's too late. Those who watch Blair Witch expecting blood and gore are disappointed to find three actors doing a hell of a fine job under far less than auspicious circumstances. The same could have been said for Jamie Silberhartz.

I mean think about it. During the first LOST ARG, Jamie Silberhartz was standing on the cutting edge of a frontier in the entertainment industry that they still haven't quite figured out yet, and she did so brazenly with no trepidation (at least evident in front of the camera) and she just threw it down. She had to convince her audience she was Rachel Blake and pull off monologues containing insane amounts of exposition. This is the kind of stuff that the LOST television series tries to show us rather than tell us, but that takes money and time. The people behind the first LOST ARG didn't have either, but they did have Jamie. A lot of what made the first LOST ARG work was riding on her back, and she pulled it off.

You may critique and scoff the finer details of her performance but for raw courage alone it was quite a sight to see. People don't remember her real name, but if you mention Rachel Blake to LOST fans, they'll remember. Rachel Blake may not have been canonical in the eyes of Damon & Carlton, but that wasn't the fault of Silberhartz's performance. It was the fault of what they gave her to say and do. Had the first LOST ARG been better managed, she would have had better material. Jamie Silberhartz took crap and made it gold. For that, she's been largely forgotten. I find that frustrating to say the least.

The second LOST ARG was far less memorable for me. Find 815 was essentially a lead up to the introduction of the frieghter into the story of LOST. I didn't follow it as closely, partly because it was even less canonical than the first one, but what was presented was bleak and stale. There were no breathtaking performances, and I must admit a large appeal for me regarding LOST is acting. What I did see in Find 815 didn't interest me a fraction as much as Silberhartz's work on The Lost Experience.

Then the Dharma fiasco of LOST ARG 3 that was cut short due to budget constraints and a realization on the part of the people behind LOST that even the little bit of money and time invested in an online game between seasons was not going to bring in new viewers. The verdict was in. By this point in time if you haven't been following LOST, you are lost. Jumping into season four for a newcomer is maddening. Those not already obsessed and addicted to LOST are waiting for it all to come out on DVD. More importantly, they're waiting to hear whether or not the end of the series actually lives up to the six years or so of pomp and circumstance. No one would remember The Fugitive if Kimball never found his one armed man.

Now we have Damon Carlton and a Polar Bear which stars Paul Scheer, a very talented comedic improvisational performer, most well-known for his work on The Human Giant. While I appreciate him as a comedian, I don't particularly appreciate the choice of casting him because his mere presence announces that this last LOST ARG is not going to be taken remotely seriously. The producers of LOST have given up trying to use this medium to tell stories they can't tell in the television series itself. It informs me that they believe the previous attempts to all be failures, and this time around they're just gonna be silly and not care about the end result. The first "clue" of this latest installment of ARGs suggested people should go to California and attend some party. That's a slap in the face to people like myself who don't find "getting a life" to be remotely interesting. I watch other people going out to parties and having a good time, and I honestly don't see the benefit to filling a room with strangers, loud music and large amounts of alcohol just to sweat on one another.

Paul Scheer is seen in video rummaging through trash outside the LOST production offices in California. He finds what we are led to believe is the front page of the script to the first episode of season six. The title shows "LA X." From this, everyone thinks now we know the name of the first episode. We do not. This was thrown out. It was found in the trash. This is for me essentially the metaphor with which I will measure this entire ARG. All that we're seeing are the ideas thrown out. This final ARG is all the stuff the producers thought about doing in this final season rather than actually do what they set out to do at the beginning. People want the bomb to go off. They want to see a reset. They also don't. The ramifications of that would ruin the series as a whole.

Many think we are looking at a Schroedinger's Cat in the eyes of Juliet Burke, and that there is an equal possibility the bomb's explosion will reset time as opposed to the other possibility that it won't. Either way, there's a belief that the bomb went off, and come next January we will see the repercussions of that. I have said this repeatedly in multiple forums and no one believes me: the bomb will not go off. It can't. Juliet's pounding away on an alleged nuclear bomb that hasn't gone off after falling through a hole drilled into the Earth. Do we honestly thing Juliet banging on it is going to make a difference? The white light we saw was a time hop, like several times before. There is no Schroedinger's Cat in the eyes of Juliet Burke.

Hurley, Jack, Juliet, Sayid, Miles, Sawyer, and Kate will all return to present time. Their time hopping will have been over. They will move in time but not in space. Juliet will be buried in the remains of the Swan station after its implosion back in season two. I think they're going to give us a death scene and then her presence will be occasionally felt late in season six when somehow they'll use a vision of Juliet to help bring to a close some emotional loose ends with both Sawyer and Ben. Beyond that, the character has fulfilled her requirements which is why the actress has a job now over at "V".

Sayid is also mortally wounded, but it's distantly possible to write out a way for Jack to get Sayid to Otherton's medical facilities where there might still be enough left to keep Sayid alive. I'm not crossing my fingers on that one though, because when Jack figured out Sayid never made the bomb active, Jack may just let Sayid die. Yes, I'm saying Sayid purposefully rigged the bomb to look convincing to Jack, but it was a dud. He never armed it. This is why it never went off.

Why? Because Sayid shot Ben square in the chest at near point blank range. Yet still Ben lives. Sayid knew better. Blowing up the area near The Swan station was not going to change anything. Whatever happened, happpened. When you realize that the planet Earth is a pale blue dot, you can't think that time can be changed that irrevocably. It has a way of course correcting, because the forces at work in temporal physics are universal. Time changed on Earth would effect the rest of the universe, but it's too small in comparison to not BE affected itself.

Like a pebble in the ocean; it's still going down.

So this ARG they're putting out to attempt to tide the masses between now and January will not tell us how the story is actually going to proceed. Like a deft magician, the producers of LOST are going to make us think we're getting clues when we're really just getting more smoke and mirrors. They CAN'T give us clues to the final season. It hasn't even started yet. They're going to point us as far away from the actual story as possible, for the same reason when you were a kid your mother didn't want you filling your belly with cookies before dinner time: she wanted you to eat your greens.

I'll follow the ARG along because in for a penny in for a pound, but so far I'm not liking it. Feels like a slap in the face to the dedicated audience that's hung out with them from the beginning. I know Damon & Carlton think this is like a final parting gift to we diehard fans. I know I'm looking a gift horse in the mouth. Still, I can't help it. I gotta ride this damned horse from now until January. It's gonna be a long six months, and I just wish the horse in question had better teeth than I do.

Who is Paige Railstone?

There are multiple conflicting opinions and facts regarding Miss Railstone. This is to be expected. Since she refuses to do interviews and somehow manages to draw crowds with little to no preceding formal publicity, it's very difficult to pin down where and when she's been in the world throughout her career. Records are undependable. I've found multiple occasions when she's allegedly performed in two or more places at once, in different countries. Those who have met her personally would not describe her as business-minded. Her brother operates as her business partner and keeps her on the go. She's more artistic-minded and very vague in answers to even the simplest of questions. "Ask if she wants some coffee. I dare you," one club employee was overheard recently, in reference to Miss Railstone. "I asked for her autograph once," a fan told me recently. "She said to me 'The Buddha's footprint would have more value to us both, and I'm not even Buddhist. Are you?' Then she kissed me on the cheek and left. I didn't wash my face for a week." She and her brother have no formal base of operations. Multiple addresses and PO Boxes have been attributed to them but Joey said recently to the press they "don't get snail mail." Their business is fluid and constantly adapting to their own needs. Some eyewitnesses have reported she only shows up at a gig with a laptop and some homemade DVDs in her backpack and somehow manages to pull off shows that range from ninety minutes to nine hours. One report said all she had on her that night was a cellphone and a bluetooth, but that may have been a Tall Tale. She often borrows equipment that's at the gig or that the region's local DJs bring to her. This means she travels light. She rarely appears early at gigs and rarely stays for autographs. Some find her behavior eccentric. Some find her weird. Some find her quietly reclusive and others find her extravagantly bawdy. Some say she's straight-edge (no foreign chemicals), and others have witnessed her with a Venti Cafe Mocha from the local Starbucks, or chugging RedBulls and vodka to get her through a set. She's definitely an enigma, and because of her transient and cryptic behavior, Miss Railstone appears to be whomever or whatever the person experiencing her wants her to be.

I Married And Divorced Janeane Garofalo

My reputation for stupidity precedes me. I don't know if this is actual irony or just the kind of irony that Alanis Morrissette sings about, but I wrote the following not five days ago. It's now the following Thursday, and I just happened upon my ex-wife on Facebook. So there is an outside chance she will eventually read this. I say 'outside chance' in that it's better than the odds of my winning the lottery, but not by much. I just apologized to her for having been an asshat several years ago. She doesn't seem to remember it. I should probably delete this entry, considering it's more recent evidence of my asshattery. However, I'm too much of an idiot to clean up my blog anticipating possible company. Besides, she knows how much I used to adore Janeane Garofalo. Hopefully she'll take it as a backhanded compliment.

There was a time when I was so hot for Janeane Garofalo and woulda done anything to breathe her air. She was my dream girl. When other guys in high school and college were drooling over Cindy Crawford or Uma Thurman or Elle MacPherson, I was starry-eyed for Janeane Garofalo.

Then I dated. Then I got married. Then I got divorced. Then I just stopped trying to get girls to like me at all. Many years have gone by and I have stopped trying. Every rare now and again a woman throws herself at me, but I stopped throwing myself at them. Women suck at catching you if you throw yourself at them. I gave up. If it happens it happens and if it don't it don't. More often than not, even if she's interested, it don't work anymore cuz I suck at catching too.

Janeane Garofalo's got fibromyalgia? My ex-wife had fibromyalgia. She's addicted to pain pills? My ex was poppin' pills. Janeane's an alcoholic? Garofalo is playing w/computers & doesn't know what the hell she's talking about? Garofalo & my ex-wife could be frickin sisters.

Thank God Janeane Garofalo would never give me the time of day. Feels like I dodged a bullet. In hindsight, when my ex-wife asked me to marry her, I shoulda told her no, then suggested she go find Janeane Garofalo. Woulda saved me a decade of heartache. Those two were made for each other. The sad thing is, it's a decade later and I'm still talking about my ex-wife. That's just sad.

And lying about her too, cuz let's be fair. She knew at least as much about computers as I do. She's not an alcoholic. It's just that in the third paragraph above, it wasn't as funny that my ex-wife and Janeane Garofalo only have two things in common. So I had to add a couple. Three's the magic number in comedy, but I went for four cuz I never know when to just go for three. I had to elaborate a little bit. Stretch the truth. Bill Cosby would do it when he went for the funny. There's no harm in it. Janeane Garofalo would appreciate that as a comedienne if she ever read this. She's not going to ever read this. I'm just pointing out that I got down the mechanics of comedy even if I'm not actually funny.

My ex-wife's never gonna see this. She hasn't spoken to me in years. As far as she's concerned, I'm dead, and she's probably better off pretending that. I don't know why I should give a shit if she found out I was out and out lying about who she was and whether or not she was just like Janeane Garofalo.

Now the two of them have a lot of boring things in common that just didn't make sense in the third paragraph cuz these aren't funny. They both have dark hair. My ex would pretend to be a redhead but it came out of a bottle. She was really a brunette just like Janeane Garofalo, who pretended to be a bleach blonde for awhile, probably for the same stupid vain reasons. They both have brown eyes. They both think they're fat when they're really not. They're both petite. They both have tattoos. They both like dogs. They're both funny ...occasionally. From a physical perspective they both turn me on. From an intellectual perspective they both turn me on. From an emotional and psychological perspective they both scare the mother fucking shit out of me. My ex-wife was pagan while Janeane Garofalo is an atheist, but nobody's perfect.

For all intents and purposes, I married Janeane Garofalo. Then Janeane Garofalo divorced me.

I didn't realize it when I was married. I just figured it out just now. Had I KNOWN when I was married that for all intents and purposes the woman I was married to was as Janeane Garofalo-ey as I was ever gonna get, maybe I woulda tried harder to not let her divorce me.. Nah. We were driving each other crazy.

I think if fate had ever allowed me to meet Janeane Garofalo for real, and ask Janeane Garofalo on a date, and she said yes (which would have happened before I got struck by lightning three times but right after I won the Powerball without ever having bought a ticket) we would have driven each other crazy, and Janeane Garofalo would hate me and never speak to me again. But Janeane Garofalo will never speak to me now, so the same effect has occurred without my having to be bogged down by the cause or the consequences.

I mean, Janeane Garofalo doesn't know me, so she doesn't hate me. But if she did know me, I guarantee you, she'd hate me. There are some certainties in the universe that are unmistakable. The way things are now, I'll never meet Janeane Garofalo. I'll never speak to her. She'll never get to know me. She'll never hate me. That's pretty awesome, if you stop to think about it. I avoided a lot of pain, and got the same result.

Of course sexually she would have rocked my world, and I would have left her disappointed. I'm never going to find that out for sure, but let's just assume the best possible scenario, and then look at harsh reality.

I'm gonna die miserable and alone, but at least I won't die with a high maintenence woman screaming at me until I have a coronary because I forgot to take Buttons and Marmaduke out for walkies again, and why the hell while I was out didn't I refill her prescription of vicadoodles?

All things being equal, I came out ahead.

Lost To Chance

When I try to explain my theories regarding the television series Lost to people who are roughly as addicted to the television series and its implications as I am, I often find myself up against a peculiar obstacle: science versus faith. I'm heavy in the science side of this argument. I find many fans of Lost are heavy on the faith side. It's like we're watching two different television series. I see a show in which the Man of Faith (John Locke) has literally sacrificed life and limb as well as sanity for what he believes to be true, flying in the face of all the factual evidence to the contrary. He so believes this, that the alleged Man of Science in this story (Jack Shepherd) has fallen for John's belief system to the point where he was willing to destroy an island with a nuclear explosion in order to reset everything. John had been blowing up submarines and buildings and underground installations in order to maintain the status quo. Now Jack wants to do the same thing with the entire fabric of reality. It's like science has lost to faith.

This is where I think we're seeing two different shows. Some look at Locke's plight, and they witness Jack's embrace of Locke's faith, and they think this is a good thing. It is not. The outcome of whether or not that Swan station gets built is not so humongous a thing that using a nuclear bomb to destroy the area and make it impossible to build there - that's not enough to rewrite SpaceTime. In the universal picture, you could destroy this entire solar system and it wouldn't make a hill of beans difference. We're just a pale blue dot. We are insignificant, and as Mrs. Hawking was fond of reminding Desmond, "time has a way of course correcting..."

Jack has given up on science and turned to faith. In fact, he's USING science in the form of Faraday's theory in order to destroy reality as it is, and force things into what Jack wants them to be. Even if Jack were successful, it would be a small victory, and what's destined to happen will eventually happen anyway, as Hawking's friend with the red shoes learned the hard way.

When Kate looks at Jack and sees that not everything in the past three years has been all bad, and she sees Jack wants to erase everything, she's crestfallen. I think we viewing this should be too. Jack's embracing the idea of destroying in order to create: he's essentially playing god. This is not how a hero behaves. This is not how science wins over faith. This is not how common sense and rational thought wins out over superstition and fear of the unknown.

In the first episode of this series, characters heard sounds coming out of the jungle and were terrified. They had no idea what was beyond those trees in the dark and that unknown was scary. The response for some was to not venture beyond the trees, but one can only live on fish and sunshine on a beach for so long. Others ventured into the canopy of the jungle and discovered that yes there are things that make scary sounds but once you meet them eye to eye you can either survive them or not. Allowing fear to petrify you is not living. Learning about what scares you is knowledge, and knowledge is power. Now we know what lies beyond the canopy of the jungle. When Locke looked at his earlier self banging on the hatch door, he could have walked up to himself and warned him, but he chose not to, because he needed that pain in order to become a stronger person. He didn't want to deny himself that experience.

As we wait these several months for the final season to begin next January, I can't help but feel sorry for the people of faith. The series can't possibly end on a note that indicates belief over (even speculative) science. I've been trying to figure out how I can explain to someone who chooses faith over science what is in store for them regarding the series, and it admittedly leaves me in a similar predicament with regards to science versus faith in general. This, I believe, is what the writers and producers of Lost are really trying to say: not that faith beats science or science beats faith, but that humanity as a whole and each individual specifically has to hammer this whole thing out for themselves. We have to either find common ground between what our mind knows to be fact and our heart knows to be true, or ultimately we have to decide whether to feel with our minds or think with our hearts. Every day.

I used to be like John Locke. I used to believe with every fiber of my being in a belief structure that appeared to make sense at the time, but only if it wasn't properly challenged daily, and I would look to reality to corroborate my belief structure, ignoring the parts of reality that didn't mesh with what I believed. In recent years that has no longer been sufficient. I had been satisfied in believing in a world where there was a sentient omniscient being that had a personal vested interest in the individuals that make up humanity. Unfortunately, Earth is not the center of the Universe, and Mankind is not God's most precious jewel. It is arrogance to presume otherwise. IF there is a god, and I see no convincing evidence on either side of this argument that Man has not made for itself, if there is a god it is a god who has far more important things on its mind than to help your favorite sports team win the championship.

There are simply too many facts that fly in the face of what I've believed for so long. I am finding myself having to accept what is actually there, or not there, rather than what I want to see there. As Mister Ekko once made clear to John Locke: The absence of evidence is not evidence, and one cannot rationally accept coincidence for fate.

Recently scientists have been investigating probability. I say recently. That's a misnomer. For many scientists that's really all they do. IF there is no god, no supreme entity that guides order out of chaos, than everything in the universe is purely built upon chance. I personally find this theory as absurd if not moreso, than the idea of a grey-haired man in a robe living in the clouds. I don't like the atheist perspective any more than I like the evangelical point of view. I think they're both wrong, but there's not enough evidence to clarify what's right; hence the unending argument between science and faith.

More specifically, some scientists have postulated that when you flip a coin, it's not a fifty-fifty outcome. With effort, it can be predicted. If one were to invent a machine that used the same amount of force in the same direction to flip the same coin repeatedly in the same exact way, the result should be the same every time. If it's not, then there are other variants that must be factored in. Air density. Gravometric variances. Whether or not there's a draft in the room. Et cetera. When you use your own hand to flip the coin, there's even more variables to consider. You can't use the same exact force every time. One time you're going to move your arm differently than before. You may place the coin under your thumb differently. Maybe you'll catch the first one and the second flip flies across the room. We humans are far from infallible.

There's also something called precession that comes into play. When you flip a coin, it does more than flip straight on a two dimensional x y axis. It also moves along the z axis in three dimensions. Sometimes you'd get a perfect flip but more often than not, along with the over and under tumble of the coin, you'd get a spinning effect. If you were to look at this in slow motion as it curved in the air, the coin would make a sort of spiral in the air. Again, with proper mathematics taking into account every variable, it could be predicted. However, there are so many variables involved that its near impossible and certainly improbable to go through all that trouble. So we don't bother to calculate all the variables. We just flip the coin and presume everything is left to chance.

We human beings perceive chance and consequence as totally beyond our control, and oftentimes it is, because we can't control everything. We leave the control up to whatever we believe to be that which is in control. Believers in a One True God percieve one omniscient being capable of making all those calculations with less effort than you or I take to bat an eyelid. That omniscient being is putting all these variables into play in order for an outcome that is ultimately beneficial to the universe at large and ourselves specifically, and when things go wrong we attribute that to a Devil, or to the unrighteous presence of others, or we deem ourselves unworthy of a better outcome for some reason. We believe we have failed our god and this is his punishment for us.

When you flip a coin, you can control how you flip it, but an act as simple as flipping a coin involves things you may not understand completely. That if you start the coin on your hand head first for example, that increases the odds, ever so slightly, that the coin will land on the same side with which you started. How you flip a coin can have an effect as well. With years of research and practice it is feasible one could learn how to flip a coin in just such a way to where the outcome can be measured and predicted and controlled. Just as a bowler can improve his release or a golfer can improve his swing, so too can a coin flipper improve his 'game.'

The problem is one can only do so much. A golfer could train and practice for years but he's never going to get a hole in one every single time. He can get closer than before with effort, but perfection will forever remain out of reach, because there are simply too many variables beyond one's physical capability. The difference of the green. The difference in wind speed and various obstacles in the way. Whether or not he's having a bad day may even sometimes be beyond one's ability to control.

Right now the television series Lost is for some like Schroedinger's Cat. We don't know the outcome. We know what happened before the proverbial box was closed, but beyond our speculation, we have to wait until Darlton open the box again come this January, so that we may witness the outcome. Proverbially speaking, is the cat alive or dead?

We witnessed Juliet pounding on a nuclear bomb that had already gone through more than enough pounding to go off if it was ever going to go off. She banged on it with a rock eight times and in that eighth time we witnessed the screen go from black to white. Some perceive that to mean the bomb went off. Others, like myself, assume that to mean a temporal event occurred like ones we'd witnessed previously. Again I assume that temporal event sent our Losties back to their proper time. Was this all caused by chance? Not exactly. There were many variables that were controlled by Jacob. Again, I assume that because he could 'sense' they were returning even as Ben & UnLocke tried to kill him. However, like a golf swing, Jacob could only do so much. He put many variables into play and let it rip. Whether or not there'll be a hole in one is something that only Schroedinger's Cat will know for sure before the box gets opened. We'll find out in five months.

You may believe the bomb went off. You believe that Jack's plan worked, resetting everything. That is in my opinion, a belief in faith. It simply doesn't mesh with all the evidence as I've cited before in previous ramblings on this topic.

I believe the bomb didn't go off. The white field we saw was just a temporal hop. That is my opinion, based on the evidence given in the television series. My opinion does mesh with what the producers and writers of Lost revealed prior to putting the show on such a curious cliffhanger. Still, belief is a form of faith as well. It's a belief in chance, given all the variables presented to us thus far, my outcome has a higher percentage chance of being right. Even so, mine is at best a fifty-one percent chance versus your forty-nine percent. This is just a TV show, and that's the best one can hope for before viewing the final chapters of this saga for ourselves.

If that's the best we can do with a fictitious teleplay, we have no hope to ever figure out one way or another with absolute certainty that there is a god. That doesn't mean there is a god. That doesn't mean there isn't. It means, at the rate we're going now, we may never know. Living breathing humanity will never figure it out unless we come at this whole thing from a different angle. Feel with our minds or think with our hearts? We may never know.

Lost In What Way?

When the ABC television series Lost first began back in September 22 2004, we thought the show was about survivors of a plane crash being lost on a mysterious island, and of course it is that. Since the story continued, we learned that even when some of them made it back 'home' they were still lost souls in a world that confuses and confounds them. These characters seem to be lost no matter where they are, and for some the Island has become a sort of home. By the end of season five we see that Rose, Bernard, and Vincent appear to have found peace with themselves and in the company of one another. Being stranded on a mysterious island doesn't seem to bother them anymore. Whereas, our featured characters in this story have become so lost, they get to a point where they agree to activate a nuclear bomb on the belief that such a paradox would result in resetting space-time entirely.

This of course doesn't work, as I already know, and the rest of you will learn in 2010. I've discussed this at length in previous blog posts and hesitate to elaborate again on it here because this is a tangent from the point I'm wanting to make this time, but I urge you again to watch the end of the season five finale and convince me that the white out at the very end looks like a nuclear explosion and not yet another "time hop" as we had seen the characters experience many times throughout season five. I'm going with time hop. The bomb never goes off, because the bomb never did go off, because whatever happened happened.

The use of the word "Lost" as the name of this series has always perplexed me. It seems an entire oversimplification of the series as a whole. It's like calling Around the World In Eighty Days a "trip," Moby Dick a "whale," or The Rise And Fall of The Roman Empire an "oops." However, it's plain that the writers and producers of the series are endeavoring to use the word "lost" in as many different ways as possible. Not only are these characters physically removed from their comfort zone and the lifestyles to which they had grown accustomed their entire lives, but these souls also appear lost in more emotional or psychological ways. They're all deeply disturbed and long before the crash most of them lived in various states of quiet desperation; strangers in their own skin.

Jack's frenzied tale about his tattoos for example reveal a man who appears on the surface to be together and reasonable, but deep down he's rebellious, selfish, has no respect for the cultures of others, and kinda spoiled and unable to properly love another in a meaningful way. What all has Jack lost? He saved a woman who later became his wife, only to lose her later on. He also lost his father. Jack even lost his half-sister, and didn't even know he had one until long after Claire was gone.

Other characters show signs of instability as well. Hurley has been in an insane asylum twice. He insists he's not crazy in season two, but by season four he comes to a decision that he's safer locked up in an institution than he is roaming freely about the world. However, Hurley first lost his sanity after an accident on a platform that broke which killed many people and due to his weight he felt it was his fault. This depression led to his mother having him committed. Hurley later lost his grandfather, friends, and others, when he won the lottery.

Kate's a murderer. She killed her stepfather in cold blood. She tells her mother she did it for her, but we also learn that Kate learned her stepfather (whom she despised) was really her father by blood and the man she thought was her real father was only a friend of the family. Kate lost her best friend as she tried to escape her mother's hospital, and his death was indirectly her fault. She's essentially lost everything, because whenever things get difficult her first instinct is always to run. If Kate's not psychopathic, she's surely sociopathic. She's constantly reinventing herself, has gone by many aliases, and loses one identity after another when each one becomes too complicated for her to continue to wear. She's even lost a husband whom she loved dearly, but had to leave him to maintain her freedom. Finally, she lost her freedom when she was captured in Australia, and was going to jail to answer for her crimes when the plane crashed.

Desmond lost his freedom when he was trapped in The Swan Hatch for three years. Before that he lost the boat race. Before that he lost his Penny. He's since gained his Penny, gained a child, gained a semblance of freedom where he and those he loves can travel around the world in their boat but along the way he lost his innocence and also a belief that his actions are his own. He's still haunted by Mrs. Hawking's words that time has a way of course correcting, and the Island is not done with him.

Shannon lost her father in the same auto accident where Jack found his future fiance. He chose to save her over Shannon's father, because he couldn't save them both and made a decision to save the woman he was confident he could save rather than divert his attention in trying to save and ultimately losing them both. That decision on Jack's part left Shannon essentially devastated. Without her father's presence, suddenly Shannon's lifestyle was in jeopardy. Her stepmother took control of the family finances and stopped paying Shannon's bills and credit cards.

Sayid lost Shannon when Ana Lucia shot her accidently. Sayid has also lost a confidence him himself, believing now he is little more than a ruthless monster capable of killing a child on the off chance that doing so would keep that child from turning into a pain in the ass like Ben. Sayid also lost Nadia after spending most of his adult life searching for her. He finally found her upon his return to his life after the Island, but she was run over by a car.

Juliet's estranged husband was ran over by a bus. She also feared losing her sister, but she saved her just before being taken to the Island, at which point Juliet slowly realized that by taking the job on the island, she lost access to her sister and her entire life back home. Juliet lost everything. Later on, Juliet thought she found a kindred spirit in Jack, but he left the Island with Kate. Over time (and time travel) Juliet fell in love with Sawyer, but also lost him to Kate. Then she fell in a hole. Juliet's lost a lot, and if there's anyone on the island who deserves living up to the old adage that hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, it's Juliet.

Charlie lost Drive Shaft. He lost his fame. His drug addiction essentially caused him to lose his lifestyle, except for the drug addiction part. When Claire found out he was a recovering addict, he lost her respect for him and had to earn it back. And of course Charlie lost his own life. As have many people, from Frogurt to Boone.

Locke lost his parents when he was very young. He found them again but lost them when his father stole his kidney. Locke was then thrown out a building by his father and lost his life. It was given back to him by Jacob, but he lost the use of his legs. Locke lost Helen, and after the accident began losing a tangible hold on sanity, opting instead to escape into fantasies at every opportunity. Ultimately he took Abadon's advice and went to Australia to join in a walkabout. He was denied this because of his immobility (can't walkabout if you can't walk, apparently) and that led him to Oceanic 815. Locke had throughout his life invested this emptiness inside to various causes or co-ops or belief structures and repeatedly he lost his faith in them, only to embrace another possibility outside himself later. When the Island appeared to give him back his ability to walk, he responded by behaving as if he were some sort of servant of the Island. Ultimately however, he lost faith even in that, when he was alone in the hotel room having failed to bring any of them back. He was going to kill himself. Ironically, this act would give Ben what he needed to convince Jack to return to the island. Locke has literally lost everything, including his identity. However, he's gained a mysterious impostor.

Sawyer lost both his parents when he was very young. Ben lost his mother at a young age, and his innocence when Sayid shot him and Richard saved him. Hurley lost Libby. Penny lost Desmond but got him back. Faraday lost Lewis. Claire lost Aaron. Kate's also lost Aaron by giving him to Claire's mom. Ana Lucia lost her unborn baby. Ekko lost his brother three times. Jin and Sun have lost each other. Miles lost his fish taco.

So considering how much all the characters on Lost have lost, it's now difficult to think of a more fitting word to call it.

LOST Q&A Review

EW.COM recently came up with a list of Lost Mysterys That Must Be Explained. While their list was novel, I wanted to address them in a more personal matter for my own purposes. This may or may not be something I'll return to and refine as we get closer to Lost's return early in 2010. Essentially, EW just scratched the surface and used this as an opportunity to make us click fifteen times so they could get more ad revenue, but the list itself was poorly organized and very little thought was put into precisely what questions must best be answered.

Since at least mid season one, I have been operating under the preconceived notion that discussions among certain Losties (particularly Locke interactions) that have appeared to be innocuous or unimportant could arguably be attempts by the writers to speak to us about overarching plans or goals of the series. For example, when Locke refers to Jack as a Man of Science and himself as a Man of Faith, this can be construed as a looking glass through which to perceive other parts of the series. Furthermore, I believe the writers have been purposefully doing everything with the understanding that there are multiple explanations. Based on what I've read on the Internet, audiences often jump to the conclusion that Locke is correct and The Island is somehow responsible for all these events and occurrences due to supernatural powers. I believe the writers have purposefully led us to believe such a thing, but that everything and I mean EVERYTHING can also be explained via a vaguely less abstract yet still speculative and perhaps even pseudo scientific component. What is happening on the Island is due to sciences that we human beings have only begun to understand. Less than a century ago, authors like Asimov, Bradbury, and Clarke were exploring issues of space travel, robotics, nanotechnologies, and a host of topics that at the time were innovative and seemed just out of our reach. Today we take them for granted. Less than half a millenia ago, the very idea of incandescent lightbulbs would have been seen as a miracle from God or the work of the Devil. Magic to human beings is merely science that we have not yet properly learned to comprehend. One can be both a man of science and a man of faith, given proper education and circumstances. In trying to understand these mysteries, one should use both the man of science perspective and man of faith.

Our Losties: By 'our Losties' I am referring primarily to the more significant survivors of Oceanic 815 which crashed on The Island at the beginning of the episode. Occasionally, particularly in latter episodes, 'our Losties' could also refer to survivors of Widmore's freighter, members of the Tail Section of Oceanic 815, the occasional reject from The Others (like Alex, Juliet, Karl), and even Desmond. More specifically when I say Losties, I'm talking about Jack, Kate, Sawyer, Hurley, and those in their immediate vicinity who are on 'their side' in whatever scene or setting is pertinent at the time. Charlie, Shannon, Boone, Locke, and others who have been dead or undead at various points are also Losties predominantly in early seasons but less specifically show as the series wears on. In general, how are these individuals significant as a group? Why of all of humanity were these forty some odd people chosen to crash on Oceanic Six? When we are shown how they are connected to each other via chance meetings or blood relations or orchestrated manipulations by various forces, is that coincidence or divinely purposed? To what extent is chance a factor, and how much of this is direct manipulation on the part of perhaps Jacob, Blackie, or others we've yet to meet?

The Others: There appear to be multiple kinds of "Others." In fact, the term has proven to be misleading if not wholly illegitimate. There were of course survivors of various wrecks and crashes that the "Others" accepted into their fold. There were survivors of DHARMA arrested from The Purge and incorporated into their ranks. Before that there were "Hostiles" whom we are led to believe are indigenous to The Island but more pointedly appear to be merely more survivors from previous wrecks and crashes. Beyond that there may be a group of people residing in The Temple whom Richard & others are trying to protect from the outside world.

Jacob & Blackie: Blackie (aka Essau or Jacob's Nemesis) did refer to Jacob as Jacob but we never heard his name. Is this because Blackie's name would be one we recognize, or did the writers purposefully not name him so that we would have yet another mystery? Would these two gentlemen be considered "Others" even tho they appear to be beyond mere human faculties? Or is that more hokum? Are these gentlemen actually a stellar equivalent of Penn & Teller? Are they glorified magicians teasing lowly humans with technology and science that far surpasses ours so that we'd imagine them to be godlike when they merely know the metaphorical equivalent of using a magnifying glass to burn ants with the sun's rays? Perhaps they are aliens from elsewhere in space-time? Perhaps they are evolved human beings from Earth altered by The Island into near immortal and omniscient status? My favorite personal theory is that they are temporally sentient tesseracts from the fourth dimension wallowing in the third dimension like children of gods slumming it in the bowels of an insignificant bit of spacetime for kicks. We are like Jacob's high school science project in his dimension and Blackie is trying to ruin it for him so he can get a better class grade. Something like that. Essentially, all of season six should be devoted to resolving this mystery once and for all.

The Whispers: Sawyer heard it. Sayid heard it. Jack and Kate and Juliet have heard it. Rousseau has spoken of hearing it. The jungle comes alive at night to the sound of curious whispers, sometimes just prior to the arrival of "The Others" and sometimes it just happens. Are these moments when there is a temporal distortion causing the voices echoed in a certain location in one time to waft into other time periods? Is it some otherwise undocumented invisible entity entering a spacetime that happens to coincide with stressful moments in the lives of our Losties? Is there a more scientific based explanation for these whispers? Are there hidden speakers throughout the Island controlled by some unknown indivudal who activate these whispers for specific purposes that currently elude our discovery? Are there creatures indigenous to The Island which are very small, hide in the jungle, and make sounds that humans perceive to be human whispering, but are actually the equivalent of babbling geese? I am reminded of the scene in the Robert Redford movie "Sneakers" where Redford's character mistook a pond filled with chattering ducks for a coctail party. It could simply be a variant of crickets chirping that causes the whispers.

DHARMA: There are some who believe there are still mysteries to solve with regards to the DHARMA Initiative. There may be, but beyond what we already know, at this point further discoveries would be largely academic. In summary we know that DHARMA was an acronym for Department of Heuristics And Research on Material Applications and that it consisted of a group of people in the 1960s who believed humanity was orchestrating its own demise; a fate that could theoretically be stopped if someone could recalculate the Valenzetti Equation in such a way as to change one of its corresponding variables. Like a butterfly flapping its wings to change the weather elsewhere in the world, if one of these variables about mankind's doomed fate could be altered, it would change the inevitability of self-destruction. Presumably all the experiments being conducted by DHARMA on that Island were intended to serve that purpose originally. However, the people of DHARMA lost sight of their overarching goal, by falling into the minutiae of supplanting their headquarters on The Island. They ended up spending more time protecting themselves from The Hostiles that threatened to overwhelm them, and took their eyes off the metaphorical ball. Benjamin Linus, son of one of the grunt workers in DHARMA, became a traitor to the DHARMA cause, allowed the Hostiles to infiltrate DHARMA's ranks and after The Purge, the DHARMA initiative largely fell in the hands of The Hostiles, who took over the inner workings of the organization for their own ends: to defend The Island against future infiltratiion and interference from the outside world. There may be a DHARMA initiative on the mainland that is still working the equation, but that's doubtful. Anyone that Ben's Others could not convince to join them became their victims. Ben & The Others then used DHARMA's extensive infrastructure both on island and off to manipulate events to their ends. Admittedly, we do not know yet how DHARMA is funded, but that will only be revealed if it becomes integral to the plot. At this point, most anything we are ever going to learn about DHARMA was given to us in season five. We will not revisit that time period, because after the final time hop at the end of the S5 finale, all of our Losties will be returned to their present time periods. Darlton has confirmed that there will be no more time travel. Is the Valenzetti Equation correct? Will humanity cease to be in a brief period of time due to variables in that equation that seem beyond humanity's ability to alter? Only time will tell.

The Numbers aka 4 8 15 16 23 42: As I mentioned in the DHARMA section, The Valenzetti Equation was meant to determine the fate of humanty, and with 100% certainty, Valenzetti believed the world would end by the end of the 20th century. The DHARMA initiative's purpose was to find a way to change one of the variables. Whether or not they were successful or whether or not they were right remains to be seen. The world hasn't ended yet, so Valenzetti may have been wrong. Or perhaps the fact they tried to change it only postponed the inevitable and the fate of humanity is ultimately what Lost's season six will be about remains to be seen as well. More pointedly, beyond the Valenzetti Equation, many fans have determined a wide range of examples in which one or more of The Numbers appears on the show. Flight 815 for example, or Room 23, or jerseys from girls on a soccer team appearing as Hurley rushed to the plane. Some reasons for the numbers appearing are self-explanatory once it's known that DHARMA and Valenzetti are linked. However, other times there's no way DHARMA can be at fault. In those situations one can only attribute it to either coincidence, or a sense of humor among the crew of Lost. Writer David Fury admitted that when he wrote the episode Numbers, he purposefully chose to use numbers which had already been mentioned by chance earlier in the series. For example, four was the number of years Locke had spent in a wheelchair. Forty-two was an homage to Douglas Adams. Eight and fifteen were the numbers on the plane. Why sixteen and twenty-three were chosen escapes me, except that accumulatively these numbers sum up to 108, which allegedly is a number that's significant to Buddhist teachings. You can learn more about The Numbers over at LostPedia.

Adam & Eve: The prevaling theory at the moment is that the two corpses found in the Caves by Jack in season one are actually those of Rose & Bernard, who opted not to join Jack and the gang on a hail mary pass to stop DHARMA and reset time. Rose and Bernard may have remained in the past with the dog Vincent, in which case they could have chosen to die in the Caves together for some unknown reason. That's one possibility, but we honestly don't know enough about the two bodies to make any logicl guesses. It's believed that when the identities of Adam & Eve are revealed formally on the show, it will lend proof to all viewers that the writers were not making this up as they went along; that the end of the series was preconceived before they began production. That remains to be seen.

Libby: This is another mystery that arguably has been solved as best as it's going to be, but for many of us diehard fans there will always be questions. Having never had a full episode flashback of her backstory, Libby is largely an enigma. Also, inconsistencies in things she told people indicates either bad continuity on the part of writers, or the character is in some respects a pathological liar. For example, she claimed to be a med student dropout who learned how to set legs in her one year of school, but setting legs is not something they teach first year medical students. We don't even know her last name, which indicates that if we did it would tell us more than the writers wanted us to know in season two. Libby did study medicine at a collegiate level but ultimately chose psychology as her vocation. She once broke her leg skiing. She was widowed by a husband named David who had named his boat after her (The Elizabeth) and Libby gave said boat to Desmond for the race that led to Desmond's arrival on the Island. After her husband died, Libby went into decline and ended up briefly in Santa Rosa Medical Hospital, which was the same hospital in which Hurley resided for awhile. The two appear to have never met directly prior to the 815 Crash, but we are led to believe Libby recognizes Hurley even though Hurley doesn't recognize her. Libby later gave the boat to Desmond, and some years after that was in Australia and took Oceanic 815 presumably to return to the states, where she was with the Tailies for the first forty-eight days and spent perhaps a week with our Losties before she was murdered in cold blood by a surprised Michael Dawson. Her death was unintentional, but very painful as Michael had shot her in the gut. Jack administered heroin to lessen her discomfort and he and Hurley watched her die. Hurley & Libby had managed a brief flirtatious relationship which seemed to promise more intimacy, but it was stopped short by Michael. Darlton has made it clear that there is little to no chance they can get Cynthia Watros back to complete Libby's story. So we may never know for certain where she fits into the Lost Mythology beyond her donating The Elizabeth to Desmond's efforts in the boat race. I like to believe she is Pennelope's half-sister, sharing the same father (Charles Widmore) but a different (unknown) mother. However, that's speculation that may never be confirmed or denied. Somehow she worked for Widmore, and I believe Charles' behavior towards Desmond about his daughter were intentionally confrontational to cause Desmond to rebel and fight for her; a morbid gamble. Charles asked Libby to give the boat to Desmond. I'm certain of this, but have no way of proving it, as it's doubtful this story will be explored further without the involvement of Cynthia Watros. There are some things about this tv series that there's a good chance we will just never know. Was Libby on board 815 on purpose or coincidentally? Why was she in Santa Rosa's at the same time Hurley was? What is her last name? Was her husband David related to the events in any way? Was his death coincidental like Walt's mother or orchestrated like Juliet's husband? We may never known any of these questions.

Egyptian Influence: This is not so much a mystery as a choice on the part of the writers. In season two we saw that if the numbers are not punched into the computer, the countdown clock changes from arabic numerals to Egyptian hieroglyphs. Later in the series we were told about "ruins" and a "temple" whose architecture insinuates Egyptian influences. There's also a statue of an Egyptian god which stood proudly once but in the Lost present day time line all that's left in "The Shadow of The Statue" is an ankle; which Jacob made his home. Still, fans would like to know what Egyptian buildings are doing on The Island, and also why the Donkey Wheel has deposited Locke, Ben, and at least one polar bear in the middle of the Tunisian desert.

Claire: She disappeared cryptically late in season four. It's believed she will return in season six and we will learn why. We may also learn the significance of her blood relation with Jack & Christian.

Walt: He was special enough for The Others to spend unnecessary resources collecting him from Michael. They kidnapped Walt, did experiments on him, and then ultimately decided to give him back to Michael saying "he was more than we bargained for." We know Walt is able to glean information from people by touching them. We know that when stressed, sometimes birds around him fly into walls and glass doors. We know Walt has made astral appearances to Shannon and Locke. We don't know why. We don't even know if Walt knows why. The last time Walt was seen, in the episode Live & Death of Jeremy Bentham, we got the indication that at least Locke felt Walt had been troubled enough by The Island and should be left alone. The Island may have other plans for him. It's also possible the writers have chosen to write Walt completely out of the storyline for the series, due to unforseen circumstances of involving a child actor in a show that takes the breadth of his experience with puberty to tell the general public. This may be another of those mysteries that's best left unsolved.

Smokey: What is a smoke monster with sound effects that sometimes bring to mind the roller coaster on Coney Island, that tends to kill people or at the very least scare the crap out of them? This will probably be a secret that the writers of Lost will put off answering as long as they possibly can, because it's one of the oldest questions of the series, seeing as how to the best of our understanding it was Smokey that ate the pilot of Oceanic 815 in the series pilot.

Richard Alpert: Eyeliner? For the last time, no. That's naturally how the actor Nestor Carbonell looks. If you ever saw him in a beer commercial for the latino television networks, you'd understand more clearly. When not playing Richard Alpert, the guy is an hispanic heartthrob. As for while the guy doesn't age, that will also probably be addressed in season six, but due to temporal instability on The Island, I believe his apparent immortality is due to anomalies caused when three dimensional entities dabble in fourth dimensional physics.

Party Time Elusive, chapter one

Inside the alley in the late afternoon sun of a major metropolitan city sat a girl. She looked pale and frail and yet maintained a bit of fat around her mid section that was indicative of a woman who had only recently given birth. She sat hunched over breathing heavy and crying incessantly and aside from the distant sounds of cars and people and the hustle and bustle of the city, in this alley the only noticeable sound was her; breathing and wheezing and weeping. It had been like this for a short while, and it would be like this for awhile longer. She wore a conservative yet fashionable two piece outfit that seemed out of place on her in this alley. It also seemed a couple sizes too big, but it's what she had been wearing when they took her to the hospital, so its what she had to wear when they let her go. Her feet were bare, and now one of them was bleeding, but she hadn't noticed yet. She had the shoes when she started running, but took them off when she felt they slowed her down.

She sat there on the edge of the cement docking platform behind a practically abandoned warehouse. She didn't know that the warehouse was abandoned. She didn't know she was sitting on a dock. She barely had allowed it to register in her mind that she was sitting on cold dirty cement. She didn't know this was an alley. She didn't know other people would consider this a dangerous neighborhood. She didn't pay attention to the pigeons swooping down checking on the stinking garbage a few feet from her in the dumpster. She ignored the pain in her legs, the blood on her feet, and the emptiness in her gut. She had told them at the hospital there were people waiting for her, and when they wheeled her out of the hospital but didn't see the imagined friends she lied to them about, she stood up as best she could and she ran. It hurt. She was still weak and tender, but as she had done a thousand times before in her life, she pushed the pain away and did what she knew she had to do - the one thing in the world she was good at doing: get away.

That's when she found this alley, only a few blocks from the hospital. That's when she sat on the warehouse dock, unable to take another step without falling into the puddle. She had been there for awhile. The sun was still in the sky but it would be gone soon. With streaks of tears on her face and mucous coming out of her nose, she came to the numb understanding that she didn't know anything, other than the fact she had just lost the only creature in the entire world who would have unconditionally loved her.

They took away her baby.

She had signed the papers weeks before. She knew that much. She had been in total agreement that she was an unfit mother. Orphaned only four months after her birth, Elsie had only her initials to make a name. E. L. S. That's all she knew about the first four months of her life. She had been told her initials were on the linen and on the basket and monogrammed on her cloth diaper. The person who found her, a priest, noted more than once that he found it odd she was in cloth diapers. "People just don't use those as much anymore," he was fond of saying. She came from money. He made that clear. However, she'd never known a cent of it, and had a presumption that she never would.

She was cared for in an orphanage run by catholic nuns and the priest. She recalls seeing other orphans come and go but she'd always be left behind. She had many friends, and she tried to remember their names, but the only one that really stood out for her was Virginia. During their time together they were inseparable, like peas in a pod, the nuns would jest. Then, one day a couple wanted Virginia but they didn't want Elsie. They couldn't care for two. So Virginia went away and Elsie was alone again. No one wanted her, partly because strange things happened around her when a couple seemed interested. Unlucky things. Things she couldn't explain, but would keep her up at night, with tears streaking her cheeks, like they were now.

They took away her baby.

After the orphanage burned down, Elsie was carted about to different foster families but by law she wasn't allowed to stay in the same place for long, so she learned quickly not to build attachments to people. They would come and go and by the time she was fifteen she had accepted that saying goodbye was a natural part of life. She used the same false bravado for goodbyes as she did for hellos, ignoring how much it felt like breaking each time. Over time she developed a tough shallow exterior that was simultaneously welcoming and provocative without being too inviting. People loved being around her, but they didn't really miss her when she was gone. She liked it that way. She'd learned to prefer it that way. Then at the age of fifteen she learned she was pregnant: and they just took away her baby.

By then she'd fallen out of the foster family program. She slipped through the cracks. Although most foster families were very kind to her for many years, and the only reason why she'd move on was because the law required, in her situation, to stay with no particular foster family more than a few months. Well, that and the accidents. Strange things happened around her after awhile, and while all her previous foster parents had nothing but wonderful things to say about her, they wouldn't always have wonderful things to say about the time they spent with her. Strange luck.

Then there were the Courtneys. On the surface, to Child Protective Services, they were a middle aged, salt of the Earth couple. Around the time of Elsie's thirteenth birthday (even though she didn't know it was her birthday) she became a part of their family. When alone, they'd boss her around and shove her about and were all kinds of bitter and mean to her. When she threatened to complain to her social worker, they told her about Virginia.

They knew where Virginia was, and they knew she used to be friends with her. They told Elsie that if she didn't do what she was told, and if she didn't keep quiet, they would make sure Virginia never breathed again. She had no reason to doubt them. She never told them about Virginia. She couldn't understand how they knew about her.. unless they knew about the people who were there that night.. the night of the fire.. She did what they told her to do, and when they felt she was completely under her thumb, they started trying to get her to help them with their scheming. Oh, they were always scheming. Mostly small time con games and swindles. Never got caught. They were too good for getting caught. They taught her all kinds of things. Things she really didn't want to know. The Courtneys were a couple who could pretend in an instant to be kindhearted souls but deep down they were evil incarnate, and Elsie's gut churned to be so close to such utter despicable contempt for the human race. These two were leeches on society in a manner that was thankless and heartless. She was doomed to be her patsy, to protect Virginia. However, one night she awoke with a start to find that the two of them had been practically hovering over her bed like a couple vultures. She learned that night that the reason why they knew about Virginia was because they overheard Elsie talking in her sleep. They didn't really know where Virginia was. They had no way of harming her. So with that realization, Elsie ran from the Courtneys to the police, who of course didn't believe her, because one sweet conversation with Mrs. Courtney and the police learned that Elsie was just a troubled girl who caused all manner of hell to the Courtneys but they loved her and they wanted to take her home.

So she ran. And she kept running. For two years. She ran all up and down the eastern seaboard. She hitched rides in cars with strange men. She rode ferries and got on busses. She even stowed away on a commercial jet once but they found her and kicked her off. Sometimes she could pay. Usually tho she was just surviving the day, and she was ashamed to admit the Courtneys had taught her how to survive. They taught her how to use what she had to get what she needed, and how to leech off humanity like a blood tick. She hated herself, but people were always so friendly to her if she just turned on the charm. She developed a warm hard exterior that hid deep inside a cold soft broken heart.

Then she got in with a street gang, and fell in love with one of its leaders. Then she fell out of love with him and in love with a member of another street gang. She didn't know they were enemies at the time she fell in love with them. At the time, had someone pressed, she would have had difficulty explaining to you what a gang even is, and would probably rather attempt to explain to you how "it's more complicated than that. We're like family."

She found out she was pregnant. Then they found out. There was a question as to whose baby it was, and that led to an.. incident. She tried to fix it. Tried to get them to stop fighting, but it had become bigger than her now. They had always wanted to kill each her. They just used her as an excuse. So she ran.

She ended up in Bridgeborough. Again. Elsie had been in Bridgeborough New Jersey before. She didn't know why she'd been drawn to the city. Well, that wasn't entirely accurate. This was where the orphanage had been, and she had been told where the priest had found her. Although that orphanage was now long bulldozed and replaced with a shopping center. Still, she traveled far and wide the past eight years, but always ended up back where she had sort of started.

She learned from people in coffee shops and libraries and truck stops all along the east coast that if you were a girl 'in trouble' there were places in major metropolitan cities that could help a young gal out. Bridgeborough just happened to be the closest big city to her at the time she decided this was too big for her to handle alone. Elsie found it amusing that this particular kind of trouble could be easily discussed without ever actually using the words 'pregnant' or 'illegitimate' and if anyone ever asked her "where's the father?" she only had to give them a "you've got to be kidding me" look and that would end that. Truth of the matter was, she didn't know. There were a number of possibilities, but she'd quickly exhausted them as avenues for successful resolution to the problem. They all either didn't want anything to do with her, or wanted her to have an abortion. Or, in the case of her two primary suspects, the boys in the gangs, they were dead. While not averse to abortion as a choice for other women, she discovered early on it wasn't a choice she could make herself. She was carrying this baby to term, but she didn't want to keep it for life. Or so she thought.

Upon arrival to Bridgeborough, after waving the nice truck driver goodbye for dropping her off, she went to the first building that looked like it might have a doctor in it, and told them she was pregnant and had no money. That was pretty much all she said. She didn't even have to mention the orphan part. Somewhere around the ages of twelve and fourteen that word stopped illiciting from strangers any kind of sympathy. However, pregnant and poor made people even more sympathetic than ever, usually for only short periods of time.

The people in that doctor's office took pity on her, but as this was a veterinarian doctor, they couldn't help her directly. The receptionist there spoke with the doctor, who made a few calls, and less than a year later Elsie was in a hospital operating room with all kinds of equipment and doctors and nurses and strangers waiting outside the door. She had enjoyed the time from the vet's office to the operating room. She'd always been cared for and always had a place to sleep and someone would always make sure she had enough to eat, constantly reminding her she was eating for two now, but after the operation she somehow knew all that was going to go away. She dreaded that moment, but when it came she knew what she had to do: run.

Somebody else was paying for all of it and she'd signed papers, and she understood distantly that her payment for all this fuss was to give them her baby and she was completely okay with that. Then she saw her. She only got a glimpse. They wouldn't let her hold it. She doesn't even know what gender it is. They took it away. She was sixteen now, and a part of her was released into this world, into the hands of strangers, and she would never know anything. She would never even know the baby's name. This was oddly comical she thought, the tear streaks still on her face. Her body numb from the run but her breathing now returned to normal. She didn't even know her own name. Why should it make any difference that she doesn't know her child's name? It was all... somehow.. fitting. Yet she continued crying about it.

She did notice the limosine at the mouth of the alley, negotiating its way onto the small street like a young walrus negotiating its way onto dry land. It inched slowly towards her, partly because it was only inches on either side from debris and dumpsters and a lump of newspapers that might have had a dead homeless person under it, but also because it was almost as if the chauffeur inside were keenly aware this young girl was not unlike a startled fawn caught in headlights, and would run if spooked and startled.

When the limousine could move no closer to her without risking the paint job, it stopped. She looked at it with wide-eyes and a desire to run but a numbness in her legs that made it clear she wasn't going to be able to run this time. Not yet. Her legs were still in fine working order, but because of the way she sat and the stress she had put them under so soon after the delivery, they had decided to fall asleep. Her butt tingled in an uncomfortable way, and she began to have an inkling that something was wrong with one of her feet.

The chauffeur got out of the driver's side and attempted to walk around the front of the car. When that was blocked by a dumpster, the chauffeur cursed in a mumble and then crawled over the hot hood of the car, utilizing various F and S words wherever inappropriate. She then returned to an upright position on the other side and made her way to her employer's door, where she opened it. Elsie marveled at how despite her cursing and crawling, the dark-skinned lady chauffeur had managed to go about the ordeal in a very graceful and elegant manner. In fact, for a green uniform and snazzy cap, the woman belonging behind the wheel of the vehicle looked to Elsie like she should have been the one being driven.

The driver's employer however looked to Elsie more like he was playing the part, but didn't belong at all. He was a tall, thin, lanky man who unfolded himself out of the limo like a praying mantis climbing over a stalk of celery. The tuxedo he wore was plainly very expensive and fit him perfectly, yet it seemed as out of place as a poodle wearing a hoop skirt. He didn't have much hair on his head by choice, a full buzz cut that didn't show signs of receding. He wore horn rimmed glasses and a trite trim mustache that might have looked more at home on the face of a Latin lover. His skin was as pale as Elsie's but more gaunt and less healthy. His bow tie was red as were his shoes: sneakers. A full black tux with red sneakers. He smiled a toothy grin that made Elsie immediately want to punch him, and had she felt in better spirits, she would have.

In his hands, the gentlemen held two glasses of champagne. One of them was less full than the other.

"Ah. Thank you Daphne."

"Dagny!" the chauffeur corrected him.

"Yeah whatever." He looked at her and she at him, him expectantly and her annoyed, until it dawned on her that the only way he could move in this alley were if she went back the way she came and he followed. Elsie watched with amusement and disdain at the spectacle that then took place. Taking a full minute and a half at least, Dagny crawled back over the hood of the car, then took the two glasses of champagne from the gentleman in the tux. Then the young looking gentleman in the tux negotiated the hood of the car like a spry elderly man. Once back on his red sneakered feet, his tux only a bit crumpled, he took the two glasses of champagne back from Dagny and turned his spectacled eyes towards the only other lady in the alley.

"Whatever you're sellin' man. I ain't buyin." Elsie looked away, despite the fact she couldn't deny the spectacle had whetted her appetite for curiosity, and somehow she had a suspicion that he knew it. The entire display seemed to her fake - particularly him. As if this entire display was a show for her alone, and she wasn't sure if she was comfortable with that.

"Miss Seavers, allow me to introduce myself. I'm Sly Stephens, and I know this is the worst day of your life, but that's why I'm here. I want to change that." He now stood before her seated self, but because of the cement dry dock this still placed her easily a head taller than him. He extended the fuller glass of champange to her and took another sip from the one he'd obviously been imbibing from for awhile. "Dagny? I forgot the rest of the bottle. Can you be a dear and fish it out for me?"

Dagny cursed inappropriately and once again crawled the hood of the car to get to his compartment.

"You're not used to ordering people around are ya?" Elsie wiped a tear off a cheek and sneered at him. She didn't take the glass of champagne.

"I do it all the time."

"You suck at it." He offered the champagne again with a gentle gesture of the glass, but she didn't budge. He also didn't budge, and the crooked smile on his face made Elsie aware he would be able to stand there holding the glass of champagne for her for a good long while. She chose to test that theory by continuing to not take it, and he continued to stand there with a crooked smile, awkwardly hoping she would change her mind.

"Look," she said defiantly, despite the fact she was still obviously weeping, "I signed the papers. You have my baby. I don't want anything more from you people and believe me you don't want anything more from me cuz I got nothin'. I just wanna be left alone."

"With all due respect Miss Seavers, I'm not with them. I represent a ..a consortium of interested partners--"

"A what?"

"A consortium."

"Of for God's sake, Stanley!" Dagny stuck her head out of the back of the limousine, "You're a pig!" She stuck her head back into the limo but they could both still hear her shrieking clearly, "You been back her less than an hour and look at the mess you've made!"

The gentleman in red sneakers laughed nervously and then called back to Daphny, "Dearie the name is Sly. Mister Stephens to you Daphny."

"It's DAGNY!" the green-suited chauffeur reappeared out the back of the limo with a bottle of champagne. She closed the door with a slam and steeled herself for the hood of the car once again, "I'm not cleaning up back there. That's your mess you clean it up - and don't use big words like consortium on the gal. You and I both know she's been through hell and back - have some common deceny you pig!"

Elsie was keenly aware, having experienced hanging out with people used to being served and serviced by other people, that such insolence would normally be handled by immediate expulsion, or at least a fevered taunt and a dock in pay. However, Stanley's response was to look back and forth between the two ladies and laugh nervously, still offering the full glass of champagne to Elsie.

"Alright, not a consortium. Think of them as ..a party. You like parties Ms. Seavers, I know that."

"You don't know me. My name ain't Seavers. It's Elsie."

"Your name is Miss Elaine Lucille Seavers," began Stanley as if he were reciting from a file by memory, and still holding the glass of champagne for her. He took a brief sip from his own. "You were born right here in Bridgeborough New Jersey sixteen years two weeks and three days ago. In that same hospital coincidently enough from which you ran only a few hours ago. Not the same room though. Wouldn't that have been interesting though had that been the case? Your mother was Valerie Witcher, the daughter of a curious man and a celebrity of his time among the likes of The Amazing Randi and Harry Houdini."

"You're saying I'm Bewitcher's granddaughter?" Elsie

"Oh so you do know him?" He asked as if he already knew the answer. Stanley still held the glass aloft before Elsie and she she still declined.

"Yeah pull the other one. He was a debunker back in the seventies and eighties. Told people there was no such thing as magic. Then he saved the world a couple times using magic but later insisted those were just spectacles he'd staged to sell his books."

"Then he disappeared."

"Yeah so how convenient for you that you can claim he's related to me. I can't doublecheck that cuz he's dead."

"Not dead. Disappeared."

"So you say. He's been gone like twenty years and his daughter was my mom?"

"More importantly your father was Jonathan Seavers, then assistant district attorney who'd had a bit of a disagreement with the Vizzinis. They had both your parents killed, and you were to be killed too, but curiously enough you ended up on the doorstep of St. Michael's cathedral, where they clergy took you in and cared for you until the age of eight. The rest of the story you already know."

"I gotta say you do your homework. Now if you'll excuse me I had this alley first and I got some more crying I gotta do before the sun sets and I go find a corner to crawl in."

"You're not going to do that."

"I'm not?"

"No. You're going to come with me."

"I most certainly am not. I just spent the last six months with you people-"

"I'm not with the people you just left-"

"Your KIND of people! The people who got more money than brains and you use it to buy off flesh from folks like me and then you leave them on the curb like garbage."

"They didn't leave you."

Stanley spinned his head back at Dagny and hissed at her. Dagny rolled her eyes in response.

"What did you say?" Elsie tried to sound like a regal tiger ready to pounce but it came out more like a wounded lion with a limp paw.

"You ran away from them."

"Dagny!"

"Can it Stan."

"It's Sly!"

Still standing in front of the limo, Dagny ignored him and looked at Elsie. "You ran away but they had plans for you. They weren't necessarily plans you would have liked. They were gonna try to find you a job and a place to live and that kinda stuff. But you ran. And you end up ekeing out a life on your own for the next several years but it's gonna be a rough ride until you're twenty-three when-"

"Dagny so help me God if you don't shut up I will-"

"You'll do what Stan?"

He changed his tactic from a faux authoritative shout echoing the alley walls to a plaintive faux whisper that he hoped Elsie wouldn't hear but knew she would, "she's not supposed to know any of this you're ruining everything."

"Sly I love you, you know that. Otherwise I wouldn't put up with your shit. But we both read her file. This, none of this is gonna work on her. The only thing that works on Elusive is the truth. That's always been true and you know it."

Sly looked down, defeated. "I just thought I'd try something different this time." His arm still remained aloft before Elsie, holding the glass of champagne.

"Yeah well you're wrong and you suck but I still love you. We all do." Dagny took off the green cap and Elsie marveled at how her blonde hair fell out of the hat and onto her shoulders. Dagny was beautiful. Elsie was distantly disturbed by the fact her heart actually skipped a beat at the sight of Dagny loosening her appearance. Dagny unbuttoned the top button of her green uniform self-consciously, as if she were aware of her affect on Elsie. She stepped forward and took the glass of champagne out of Sly's hands as Sly took a step back and looked up, still smiling.

Now it was Dagny holding the glass before Elsie, and Elsie found herself tentatively reaching for it, but she still didn't take it.

"What Stan's trying to say.. Elsie is it? You still call yourself Elsie right?" No response. "Stan's telling you stuff you're gonna find out on your own eventually anyway, but we're here to speed up the process a little, and make the next few years easier on you than it was before."

"Before what?"

"We're time travelers!" Stan said with renewed exuberance. Now it was Dagny hissing back at him but he was nonplussed.

"Stanley!"

"Well you said yourself we should be honest with her. That only the truth works on Elusive. You saw it yourself. It's in the file."

"But she never believes this part!"

"Believes what part?"

"I know, Daphne-"

"Dagny!"

"Whatever. I know she never believes us so I thought we'd try something new but if you wanna go back to the same tired truth tactic then that's fine with me!"

The two of them continued to argue and Elsie started working it out. From the moment they drove into the alley with the limo, this entire fiasco was a staged spectacle. One they had done before. The two of them were performing lines as if they were reading off cue cards on a Saturday Night Live skit.

But this was crazy. Were they actually time travelers? Were they making up stuff about her past and future or did they honestly know things about her that would make her future easier? She absent-mindedly took the glass of champagne from Dagny's lips just before Dagny walked away to get into a more fevered argument with Sly Stephens but she wasn't listening to what they were saying anymore, rather how they were saying it. It was a performance by two bad actors orchestrated merely for her amusement. That was plainly true to her in ways she couldn't completely describe.

She took a sip of the champagne. It was actually very good. Her favorite, in fact. She recognized the taste.

What perhaps clinched it for her was the two of them were obviously familiar with one another and yet both insisted on getting each other's names wrong, as if they were pretending to not have a familiarity. This was not an employer employee relationship. These were two friends, or rather two strangers who had recently become friends due to some predisposed similarity they'd discovered. The one thing they both had in common was that they knew Elsie better than she knew herself.

She stood up, suddenly finding herself strangely comfortable with these two as if she'd known them before too, although that couldn't possibly be. Elsie's legs were wobbly and her butt still tingled, but she managed to stay upright. She took the stairs down the platform cautiously, still sipping from the champagne. Stanley and Dagny were now in a fevered discussion, citing previous times this had been attempted by other people, and how many times they had succeeded and failed. Also citing events in their past and Elsie's future that proved or disproved each other's suppositions. Elsie wasn't bothering to remember details.

..they were fans! How she didn't quite understand but if they knew her future then they had studied it. She made her way to the back of the limousine, fully expecting it to be a pig sty as Daphy had described, but found it to be pristine, immaculate, filled and stocked with either things she already knew she liked like green M&Ms, another bottle of her favorite brand of champagne chilling on ice, freshly chilled sushi inside a quaint little icebox, and a CD of the music group Beholden. There were also things she didn't know she liked but had a sinking suspicion she was gonna find out she did, like peanut brittle and black licorice. Elsie smiled to herself. Even Daphny's description of the back of the limo was staged. Stanley wasn't a pig. They were both fans of her work. Work she hadn't done yet. They knew exactly what would interest her better than she knew herself: they invented a mystery. She liked solving mysteries. It's often what would get her from one place to another. Mystery. Maybe that's what happens to her when she's twenty-three. The thing Stan told Daphne not to tell her: that she becomes a detective.

She waited paitently inside the limo for the heated discussion to die down to a curious silence outside. She had been swirling a black whip of licorice in the air for her own amusement. She never realized before but yeah she likes black licorice. She took another bite from one and looked over at the still open door. Daphny and Stanley both peered into the limo at her, shocked that she was inside.

Elsie looked at them both in a way that was new to her but that they'd seen her do before but always on vids or in pictures. Never to them. Elsie pointed at Dagny with her licorice. "Your real name is Daphny but you want me to call you Dagny." She then pointed at Sly. "Your real name is Stanley but you want me to call you Sly, right?" They both nodded. "Are there others like you? And you all do that?"

"Some of us do," Dagny looked embarrassed.

Sly was far less embarrassed about it but probably should have been, "It's kind of in honor of you. You go by Elsie right now, but your real first name is Elaine, and in the future the world knows you as Elusive."

She thought to herself a moment. "That... that's actually kinda cool!" She took a sip of champagne, and marveled at how champagne and licorice really don't go together in a way that she really liked.

Sly continued, "of course our telling you this kinda changes history. We don't know what happens from here on out this time."

"Yeah I'm not a scientist. You're talking over my head, Sly. Get in! Where we going?"

They both smiled at her and closed the door. Then Sly climbed into the passenger side up front and Dagny took her place behind the wheel.

"First," Sly said as he strapped himself in, "We have to make a few stops along the way to the hotel we have purchased for you."

"Hotel room you mean?"

"Nope," Dagny smiled at Elsie with the rear view mirror and Elsie smiled back. "We bought a hotel, just a few blocks from here."

"Dagny I hope you don't take this the wrong way.." Elsie noticed Dagny and Sly share glances, "but in the future do I find out that I'm a bisexual?"

"Yes ma'am." Dagny smiled again in the rear view mirror.

Sly groaned unhappily, "She never picks me."

"That's cuz you wear that stupid tux every time."

"Then you're gonna buy me a drink Dagny when we get to the hotel."

"Yes ma'am!"

"And Sly you're gonna change into whatever you normally wear and I'll let you try again. Keep the sneakers tho. I like the sneakers."

"See!? I told you!"

"So you got the sneakers right," she said to Sly. Then she turned her attention back to her idol, "but we're going to take it slow ma'am, because of your condition and the fact in the original time line you didn't know you were bi for a couple years yet."

"I think I always kinda knew."

"And because of your present condition."

"What's wrong with my condition?"

"You just had a baby, ma'am."

"Oh. Well. I'll manage."

"I'll be gentle. No pressure, ma'am."

"And stop calling me ma'am."

"Yes.. Elsie?" she looked into the rear view mirror quizzically and Elsie smiled back. She liked smiling at this one. It was going to be a fun evening, she hoped.

"That'll do for now. Not sure if I like Elusive. Sounds pretentious."

"You're very pretentious in the future, Elsie." Sly laughed nervously, "It's a part of your charm."

"Yeah well I ain't there yet." Elsie looked out the window and noticed Dagny taking a left onto a boulevard where her old friend the priest was. After the orphanage and cathedral burned down, he went into a decline for many years but last Elsie heard he was working at a homeless shelter not too far from what had been the orphanage but was now a shopping center. "Where to first?"

"You like hats, ma'am," Dagny had negotiated their way out of the mouth of the alley and was now on the road.

"How do you know I like hats?"

Dagny cleared her throat, now obviously even more self-conscious than before. "Because there's one hat in particular that Father McKenzie has which is yours but he doesn't give it to you for a few years. You're going to go in there now and ask for it. We'll wait outside."

"Why do I need the hat?"

"Because your fans want to see you with your hat," Sly said.

"You mean there's more of you future people than just you two?"

"Why do you think we reserved an entire hotel?"

"...Wow."