"Do you suppose people in Brazil ever say to each other, wake up and smell the coffee?" she asked. I spilled my drink in her lap for that one. "Excuse me, dude, but you got some wool over your eyes," she said, at which she promptly began scratching at my eyeballs. She was right: there was wool. "Oh, and listen... that knife that's sticking out of your back...?" Ooops - I hadn't noticed it. "Yes, well, it's got all these jewels on the handle, but that doesn't mean you won't die from the wound." She opened her purse, and little sparkling angel surgeons emerged. With swift agility and a few glorias, they set to work.

It was then that we realized from whence the knife had come: the figure in the leather, standing in the doorway with a sneer as wide as a giraffe's neck is tall, features obscured by a cloud of obfuscation and embarrassment. "There's more where that came from," said the ethereal voice. "I live next to a knife store."

"Come on," said she, "I know a back exit." We slipped past the pinball machines and out into the parking lot, where I realized my back was healed, and my eyes were opened, and my heart was in her hands, she knew macramé and was creating a little flower where an old tired prison muscle used to be. "This thing doesn't get much exercise, does it," she said. "I'm willing to change," I said. "I'm willing to experience freedom with you, and I'm willing to change for you; I'm willing to fall in love with you, and I'm willing to trade aliens for angels. "You don't hafta," she said. "I think aliens are kinda cute." "For you," I said. Smile like you mean it; Apollo's chariot pulled up, and the man said, "You kids need a ride anywhere?"

"Umm," she said, "how about Berkeley?"