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             IT IS SLIGHTLY AFTER 11.00 AM ON A THURSDAY IN THE STATE OF OREGON USA. MARI Belen muses on the time difference, because it is just past 8.00 pm in Madrid de España. In one hour or maybe two hours l’americana, as Carlos Jon and Umberto sporadically and teasingly refer to Ms. Jannet Russman, will initiate a Skype session with Mari Belen. Carlos Jon and Umberto are Mari Belen’s professional colleagues and accidental friends. She made an innocent mistake, with her investigators, when she nonchalantly mentioned that she has maintained contact with the American, of course her colleagues speculate about her real intent. She puts up with their occasional teasing about her non-professional interest in the American woman because, in fact, she does have a non-professional interest, a strongly non-professional interest, in that woman. Continue reading →

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             AT SUNRISE, JANNET WALKS ONE FLIGHT OF STAIRS FROM HER FLOOR, IN THE PACIFIC building, to the roof garden. Instead of her morning physical practice in her apartment, she decides to practice in the open-air of the topmost floor of the building. She does her daily exercises of yoga stretches, tai chi moves, deep breathing, and lastly a few minutes in silent trance. This is her daily wakeup routine. It is a bit cold in the open air of this morning yet it is wonderfully clear and bearable. As she finishes, for this is usually a fifteen to twenty-minute routine, she notices movement in her peripheral vision. She turns to face an impeccably dressed man with a coffee and a cigarette.

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