Fortune's Kiss
		A Fable About Strength and Weakness
	The explosion was felt for miles and the fireball lit up the entire top of the hill.   When the blast rocked through the town the Haters, who had been waiting for their order to be executed, poured into the streets and marched up the hill toward the billowing smoke.   As they got close to the home a strong breeze from the ocean blew across the hilltop pushing the smoke to the East and revealing the large home standing intact.  On the porch the Woman and her girls could be seen pouring pails of water over the railing onto the blazing rose bushes.  On the walkway in front of the home was a hole where flames were busy consuming what was left of a dark blue uniform and a brown leather holster.  A twisted metal star was lying in the burning grass thirty feet from the home.  What used to be a hand was nearby, being picked at by a bluejay.   When she saw the townspeople coming up to her home the Woman put down her pail and called her girls around her.  She stared down at the approaching crowd, and then she spoke,   "The next time you hire an assassin get one that's not so longwinded. "   The leader of the Haters stepped forward, spread his arms and said,   "What are you talking about ?  What happened?  Can we help ? "   The Woman stood silently for a moment looking down at her neighbors and then turned and looked at her girls who were huddled around her, both to protect and to be protected.   "Well, my little angels, it appears that, although their hired killer ended up killing only himself and our beautiful roses, I think that they have won this war."   Turning back to face the crowd the Woman leaned forward, picking at the blistered paint on the wooden railing.   "Yes, my good neighbors, you have won.  Your attempts to drive me away with your silly laws were, if anything, pathetic and somewhat amusing.  This, however, is something else.  I don't care when you try to hurt me.  I can take your hatred and never feel it, but when you try to murder these young girls who have never done anything harmful to any of you, in fact I can see the faces here of a number of people who have found moments of happiness in my home, I cannot allow this to continue.  So, you win.  I will close my business and I will leave this place.  Then you can make this town into whatever it is that you think you want it to be.  I hope it makes you happy."   By late the next afternoon the Woman and her girls had loaded three wagons with as much of the furnishings and their personal things as they could manage.  What they couldn't carry they left behind and just before sundown they slowly pulled away from the big home on the hill, down the one-way street and then left onto the dusty road leading out of town and into The Interior.   The wagons were barely out of sight when the Haters held a special meeting, declared the home on the hill to be an abandoned property, took possession in the name of the People and then named the home to be the new official residence of the Mayor.  All extremely legal and notarized.   The road that led to The Interior was dry, dusty and slowly being reclaimed by the surrounding forest and brush.   The road led nowhere.  The Interior was a place where there was only emptiness and History.   Earlier in the century fortunes were made and lost there as the price of gold and other precious things rose and fell with the schemes of the speculators.  Land and people were used up and then abandoned as the veins petered out or the pools got deeper than men could afford to drill.   At the end of her second day on the road into The Interior the Woman pulled over her small caravan and gathered her pilgrims around her.   "What do you see?", she asked them   "Where?", said one of her girls.   "Here, right at your feet.", she said, pointing down at the ground.   The girls all looked downward, trying to see what the Woman, obviously, wanted them all to see.   "Dirt", "Weeds", "Ants",   "Yes, but what else, underneath the dirt and weeds? "   One of the girls, a large, bony redhead who laughed a lot, squatted down and scraped at the dirt with her finger.     "Bricks, I see bricks", she said, looking up at the Woman and smiling.   "Exactly", said the Woman, "Bricks that lead off through the brush there. Donna-Marie, you and Celia come with me.  The rest of you wait here."   The three of them slowly picked their way through the high grass and weeds and into the thin forest that stretched off farther into The Interior.   After about fifteen minutes the girls who had stayed with the wagons could hear excited voices and Donna-Marie's booming laugh as the three explorers appeared out of the brush and waved.   "My little Angels, we have ourselves a home.  These bricks lead right up to the front door of what once was, and will soon be again, a large and inviting home."   With some effort and care the Woman got her girls and the wagons up the pathway to the home.