of masters. He led Sam into sniffing up again and told him not to be afraid, for A MASTER IS A MAN.

"If only I could find one," Sam said, mouth full of a homebaked fig wheat cookie Deirdre had slipped him.

The real masters hide themselves from us, Alyosha said, and we do not recognize their faces when they walk among us. And what do those who have seen say to those who are blind? Universally they say, possessions will not warm you through this night. The things of this world are only posts for the blind to grope. When we walk in light we do not have need of them.

Yes, said Sam quickly, yes yes, I give up all things.

Merilee's personal voyage down through all the spiral layers of an artichoke was interrupted by her amore's words. She gazed. Although her toe still painfully reminded her, she reveled and rejoiced to see how far she had brought her man. What a work is-

"-but, but," Sam puttered, "but Alyosha when you become a disciple, doesn't the master become your thing? Your possession? the thing which keeps you blind and from the light?"

"Only if he is not a proper master," Alyosha replied. "The master makes us believe in him deep-deep down where the believing begins. He leads us beside the still waters and into the green jungles. And there, at the right moment, he forsakes us."

Silence and the heart of the artichoke delved.

And then Alyosha in his rimless glasses and his gold brocade with the purple feathers for an instant became again the Melvin Lang from Rockaway, CP and son of CP, he had been in another incarnation. "WE AWAIT WITH JOY THE WITHERING AWAY OF THE MASTER," he in toned. Then, taking Sam's big hands in his own and stroking their backs intimately, Alyosha said, "Come to Mexico with us Sam, and see if I can wither away for you."

"Merilee would like that. I would like that."

"Then we are decided, and the gates to the temple are open."

"But I have my sculpture to finish first."

"To possess?"

"No." Sam said, "to make."

"You are right. Different actions."

"And then maybe." Sam traced wheels in the carpet, ashamed at refusing so lovely an affair. "I'm still too afraid of the jungle to risk it."

"You will come to the green in your own good time," said Alyosha. He got up and glided out to the kitchen to blend organic cantalope juice for one and all.

How Merilee admired the soul of the Master. THE MASTER COMES AND GOES. Alyosha's freedom to retire to Mexico. No hassle for Alyosha the Beatified to wait so, cross-legged on a floor mat in Tabasco with his other disciples gathered about him. No one forcing Alyosha to eat flesh. No one going down on the beach and retrieving it if Alyosha threw the alarm clock out the window. Alyosha's soul not bearing the weight of other souls in the Here and Now and maybe not even in the To Be. Alyosha not sorry to leave them, only Merilee sad to be anchored here to the south coast by Sam. A little sadness she tried to stunt by clipping its roots. But still her resentment blossomed inside her like a miniature tree.

Young Stefan preened the cantaloupe froth mustache he had grown. "Just like the real one I would have if I could," he said.

"In time." said Merilee, thinking already of ways to give of herself to such innocence.