Actually I thought Leftovers in Pulaski sounded like a Coen brothers film, but if you want it to be a Chuck Barris game show, that's what it'll be. You're the one out there in the boonies eating yesterday's food. Dust off the gong! I was thinking of me and Don but I never ran up those steps not even when I wasn't wearing gear. I'm all the characters when I write, aren't you?

Sunday morning and people are on the move. It's easy to tell who is a local, who is an expat, and who is a tourist. The tourists are easiest; they're the sunburnt ones in tank tops and flip flops, but nice flip flops, on their way to a dive site or standing frowning in front of Cultimara grocery trying to figure out why it isn't open. The sight of the string of locals entering the church down the street finally clues them in--the dignified women in their dresses, white shoes and hats, the men in dark slacks, pressed white shirts worn with a subdued tie, and the children starched and pressed in their Sunday clothes. The boys and girls are easy to tell apart; the boys look like miniature men in their dark slacks and white shirts, the girls look like flowers in pastel or bright dresses, their long coltish legs all knobby knees and tendons, their hair captured into braids to lie close to their heads with a handful of plastic clips or beads on the ends. All of them wearing Sunday faces filing into the cool dimness to say a prayer or sing a hymn or even, judging from the look on a few of the older women's faces, set God straight about a few things.

I'm not happy with this at all, but it's what showed up at 11 last night and who am I to argue?
--Barbara