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I need to sit here quietly

If you knohat is good,

you’ll stay away

And leaveat the words, they seem pretty antisocial But the

I don’t know It was pretty perfect

When the song was finished, Josie nodded toto read"

Alex looked at ed and opened my journal

I will tell you that not only did I not feel intis, I wanted to do it

And I hoped that Astrid was lurking near I was pretty sure she was I wanted her to hear ht help her feel better

Here wasa blanket over our land

But like so a candle

Sudden and total

Out--just like that

Noe are waiting

Waiting in the dark

To see if soht

We can cower,

We can fear,

We can get lost together or

Get lost alone

But the truth is:

I aether

We are silhouettes of sunlight

cast against the night

Shining now, let us

Shining, hold the light,

Shining, so that our fa

I know A poeot up We hadn’t planned a thing, but darn if she didn’t strike a match and hold it up She took her candle and lit it It was as if we had choreographed it--ht candles But we hadn’t

Josie turned to Ulysses, as sitting to her left, and held out her candle toward hirabbed his pillar and lit it fro next to hiot to Astrid’s elad he had done that I wished I had done it

When the flame went all the way around the circle, Josie reached forward and put her candle on the mirrors she had set in the center of the circle She nodded for us all to do the saether The crystals and theit sparkle out all over the place

The little kids were ot up She had a basket and in it were slips of paper and cardboard They were photographs of people Not faazines, off product packaging, out of book covers

"These are just some pictures of people we don’t know," Josie said We each took a slip out of the basket

"I want you to take one photograph and look at that person and just send theht and wish them peace"

Ulysses waved his hand at Josie He whispered so in Spanish, as he held out his photo This was maybe the third time I’d ever heard hi, and he started to cry

He pushed his picture back into Josie’s hands

"What’s he saying?" I asked Max But Josie got it She quickly looked through the photographs and gave Ulysses one of a fat Chinesean apple

"This one okay?" she asked

Ulysses nodded

I saw Josie look at the photo Ulysses had had It was a photo of a s cookies It probably looked too randmother

Ulysses wiped his nose on his sleeve This sweet, Spanish-speaking kid, alone with a bunch of Anglos His spirit not crushed Just doing the best he could I really loved that kid

I looked at the scrap of cardboard inbut a diaper

It made my heart hurt to think of the baby Most likely dead now A baby

I started to think this was not a good idea The whole cere to do, anyway?

I started to really protest, in oing to get upset, or confused This was a stupid idea and who did Josie think she was, anyway? It wasn’t her place to lead us into soht about the dead babies and got all torn to pieces

Who did she think she was, anyway?

Josie held her stupid photo to her chest and started to sing

Peace upon you, peace around you,