Tarla wrote:

Dear Child, you tread so gently in here, that I will return the

softness. I have Slack. I can have ANYTHING that I desire, BUT I

know that there is a price to pay. If I want the things the CON tells

me I need...big house, fine car, french jeans, I know...I KNOW that I

will pay for them...not only in money, but in teensy tiny chunks of my

soul, every time I let someone else tell me what I want, what I need.

You want to be famous? It looks good doesn't it? all that

money...travel, people to make you look pretty? Do you know what it

costs? Everything...you get no privacy, no secrets, no time that isn't

scheduled for someone else, you are obligated to stay in shape, keep

your name in the public eye, come up with a new gimmick, embrace the

latest fashion, be the image that they need.

Slack is the opposite of all that...it is the sudden good in the

middle of all the garbage...diamonds in a goat's ass, as my mother is

wont to say. It's when you go to register your car and you see a huge

line of elderly people with wads of wrinkled papers clutched in their

arthritic hands, and suddenly they open a new window and wave directly

at you...yes, you...May I help you?...that's Slack.

It's when you wake up in the morning and you get your coffee ready and

your mind set to face the job in the CON world, and suddenly you

remember that it's a holiday, and you have a new bag of 'frop' in the

house...that's Slack.

It's when you're sitting on your porch and the sun is going down, and

the birds are dancing on the lawn, and the crickets start quietly in

the background, and you realize that at this moment, in this place,

there is nothing wanted, nothing needed but the quiet silence of your

own thoughts and the beauty of the world around you...that is Slack my

darling, and if you let them take it away from you, then they might as

well kill you...

Give me food, or give me Slack, or kill me!