Do No Harm, Part Ten

31 December 2004

I was out on the fire escape having a smoke while the New Year's Eve party raged on inside. All across my field of vision were sporadic apartment windows with lots of light and moving shadows, and a lot of windows with no lights at all, and only a few that seemed quietly occupied. Out here, though, the night was surprisingly quiet, with distant noise suggesting that calm only extended a couple blocks. I leaned on the railing and closed my eyes, letting my mind drift off in the liminal space of the new year, seeing what connections I make.

Something changed around Christmas. Whatever bond I had with Alethea went cold, but didn't feel like it had been severed. Just like she was gone, but not completely. I couldn't quite make out what to do with that information, and had trouble even interpreting it, but the longer the trail stayed cold the more I worried that I had missed my chance to do any good by Alethea. The Petrovs and I were still working on ideas on how to handle her, and had drawn up a ritual or two that could be used, depending on whether she could be helped or needed to be fought. Now we were trying to work out something that would help us find or summon her. Wherever she was, she was being particularly resistant to our attempts so far.

Nan took me aside the other day to express concern about me. She said I've been obsessive about this situation, to the detriment of all my other studies and hobbies. I wanted to blow her off at the time but the more I think about it, the more I feared she was right. Maybe it was time to start backing off, just a bit. I knew I couldn't give up just yet, and still needed to warn John that I didn't know where she was; but I also knew I had other things to do, and couldn't spend all my time on this one problem.

New Year's Resolution One: Try harder to do no harm. Learn from this experience and grow.
New Year's Resolution Two: Be myself in 2005, don't let people like John or Alethea occupy all my time.

I tossed out the butt of my cigarette and looked up to the sky one last time before heading back in to the party.

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