A bedraggled, gypsy-skirted urchin whirls in, her hair gleaming with a six-day-old patina of chalk-white dust, her eyes agleam with the reflection of souls, dreams, hopes, futures, all smashed, shattered, burned to bits, her chapped hands the pale red of apples exploded on the sidewalk, her shoes torn from walking upon war-torn rubble.

In a voice parched as desert, broken as the heart of New York, trembling like the nerves of those returning to work in Washington...she asks for water. Cool, soothing, a sweet silver draught to nourish a throat shredded by screaming...the bartender adds a sprig of fresh mint, winks, slides the tall cylinder along the bar where it catches its own twinkling image in the bar's mirror, and the two metallic-coloured glasses are like magical futuristic, towers in a miniature landscape...then she takes hold of the glass and the landscape shimmers and dissipates and is gone.

She drinks. Her tear ducts fill again. Impossible, to think they had dried for a time.

She drinks.

And sits in the corner.

And sings.

We Shall Overcome.