The Higher Authority guffawed. "It is Athena, the insect, is it? I thought the last time we were together I was Aten and you were Akhenaten, or was it the other way around?"
"I've made you Athena this time. You have a body and garments that I would ascribe as being Ancient Greek and godessesque. So, what is it?"
"So haughty and so cold. And I am your higher authority! You can freeze people even in the most innocuous situations, Gabriele. It is pitiful; as your eyes did to that Pizza Hut delivery creature who brought you a cheese instead of a Bella Garden and with the extra thick crust instead of a thin crust in violation of your strict adherence to a youth fulfillment diet. You can freeze them all you like, but don't make the mistake that you have that impact on me."
"The pizza was too hot. I turned the delivery guy cold. It kept the world in an equilibrium that way."
"And on that train trip from Bangkok to Changmai to acquire those Nawin
Biadklang paintings—"
"Not only those but others in Southeast Asia. What about it? You can't surely scold me for my response to that jackass on the train. Well, Athena, I was sketching that verdant green landscape and a train stop in a small town with all of its myriad figures when this old jackass seated next to his wife said in English, 'I would like to go to sleep now.' I said 'You are over there with your wife so sleep there next to her. I don't want to be the instigator of divorce proceedings. No need to cross the aisle and come over into these seats.' He said, 'I have a ticket. I am over there. I have a lower.' I checked my ticket. 'I sleep in the lower cot,' I said. 'It is marked on my ticket.' 'How much was your ticket?' asked the old gizzard, snatching my ticket out of my hands. '1400 baht round trip,' I told the old gizzard. 'I paid 1600 baht for mine and so I get the lower no matter what it says on your ticket. You get the upper!' he told me. 'Listen, fuck head, I'm busy now,' I said as I took back my ticket. 'Upper/lower — who gives a flying fuck. I suppose I can climb the bars like a monkey and into this upper monkey coffin but it won't happen right away. I'm busy, you see. I wasn't put on this planet to serve your whims. If you are so tired take a nap in your present seat.' By this time he had uniformed security guards and God knows who telling me I needed to go out with them as if I were being arrested and he was gossiping full force to every Tom, Dick, and Harry on the train making an embarrassing scene. Was I supposed to stop my work because Old Gizzard wanted to go to sleep at 6 p.m. I am not that big of a whore that I exist to please the whims of all old gizzards. So, he and his brown suited thugs got the cold stare from beginning to the end when I sealed myself up in my monkey coffin. I know I have a hard faade but that doesn't mean I don't concern myself with others. If Old Gizzard were choking to death, of course I would give him the Heimlich maneuver. If he were having a nervous breakdown I would talk sweet logic to him to appease him throughout the hours of illogical and troubled emotions. As it turned out, I think that he is lucky I didn't climb down from the metallic limbs and clog his snoring with my dirty socks choking off mouth and nostrils."
"You sound like a real bitch."
"People have had that impression of me. They have since I was a little girl. I don't mind at all. Matter of fact I think of the word as a real compliment. Your impression of me is all your own. Do what you will with it, and then bug off."
The Higher authority guffawed once again. When she gained composure she asked,
"So then, should I say that you need no one?"
"Yes, you've got it—no one." Gabriele smiled complacently.