“Do you mean you live here, but your village is on the other side of the river?” He began to get very excited. “Then there must be a way to cros...s the river. Is there a great tree that has fallen across it so we can walk across?”“A tree? You mean a bridge across the river?” Now the melon farmer sounded both furious and insulted. “This is a ford—a place to wade across the river. Bridges are a great barrier to commerce.”“I don’t understand,” said Steven.The melon farmer nodded sagely. “You don’t. "Uh, no - just kind of hard to get to sleep in a strange place." Can I sit down and join you?" Uh sure, why not?" So Loren sat down near me and we just sat there forawhile, not saying anything, and then after awhile he asked me a coupleof questions about school to get me talking, and then the subjectshifted to my home life with Mom and my three sisters. And after awhileI realized that I had been talking to him for a couple of hours as helistened to my life's story. And then I realized that it. Demon-bitch tries to coax me into having more water but again I resist, tucking my head further away from her and swiping blindly at the bowl in her hands. She fumbles with it for a second but cannot keep a good grip and I hear the satisfying crash of clay breaking against stone. A small victory, the first of many to come, I hope. Please, my lady, you are very weak, you must drink. Her voice is husky and as beautiful as she is, but its also fragile and fearful, not at all what I expected. The. "She signalled and they grabbed me, slammed me down into the chair andcuffed my hands to it. Then she leaned over to me. "There is good newsand bad news for you. The good news is that you are not under arrest forvoyeurism. The bad news, well, we can't go into it all, as a lot of it ishighly classified information. What has happened is through no fault ofyour own; a terrorist has stolen your ID. We are not allowed to tell youwhat group he is from, but we are allowed to tell you that he is.