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Show Moon -103 out to the decks exultant, her legs spread apart, her palms turned outward to feel the spray that splashed above the railing. When the sun broke through, the mist above the spray collapsed into colors: pink, gold, purple. The foam crisscrossed into the troughs of the waves, weaving patterns like watered silk spread before an empress. Joy rode the movement of the deck as if it were a fine-blooded horse, and for that short time she understood everything. The sexual rhythm of the waves, of Alec, returned her to the body she thought she'd lost when she'd stopped being a child. She was a wild girl again, tearing through the trees, unstoppable, only now her body carried her into danger and also into incredible delight. There was a sound like screaming in the backwash that seemed to be coming from all the people of the world she was leaving behind. She could love them with the sorrow of someone who knew she'd somehow been sacrificed. She understood that everything rises and crashes back down again. She understood power and understood loss. She would embrace it all, become large enough to feel deeply and still be strong. For this moment-and some of us need to have these moments to endure all that comes later- she felt heroic, godlike, as if she could create the world, create herself, by her own hand. Circles, circles, larger than life. Manila. Palm trees lined Dewey Boulevard, their fronds like nervous hands splayed out in seizure. The sky trembled with heat and heavy clouds. The |