Cupid: Grand Delusions 2009

by Atomdancerrr

2009 version of Cupid mentoring "Don Quixote." Different twists to the same basic ideas used in 1998. Ends much more satisfactory. No dreams lost. Starts off a little sad. Gets happy. Very funny in places.

Cupid: Grand Delusions 2009

Note Readers my intro is long due to my enthusiasm. If you are impatient or in a hurry I won't be offended if you scroll through it and go right to the story.

Disclaimer: Please consider any work of fanfiction a lovingly done advertisement for the original, official creations. There is no better promotion than what is done through love and no loyaler Fans than those who spend hours producing our own works. No wise Network or Producer bites the hands that is feeding them by discouraging this innocent, wild eyed devotion. Of course Readers do what you can to support the original. Considering how ABC is doing, we are doing a much better job than they are!

The original show can be watched at You tube and tvshackdotnet has the more lighthearted remake. (Replace dot with .) They are both good. For an explanation how Cupid switched Hosts see, "Cupid 1.0 to 2.0 The Transfer." Write me if you want to know where two unaired scripts of the original series are at on the net plus scripts of all the aired shows. Plus I know where a lot more Cupid fanfiction is at.

Only 4-6 degrees of separation! If any one can, please contact Rob Thomas and tell him Cupid keeps failing because he is writing it in the wrong genre! Cupid is for Thinkers and Readers not merely for recreational Watchers! He needs to write Claire's book inter-spaced with protest comments by Cupid himself plus first person point of view descriptions of their interactions with Cupid from the other Characters. If he would do that he would have a best seller on his hands as K-PAX was. This always should have been a book as the original Cupid and Psyche was in a story by Lucian of Apuleius, "The Golden Ass." This was written in the second century of Christianity! Cupid and Psyche started off as the oldest novel we have that was translated from Latin. They need to become a book again! Almost two thousand years later and we are still writing about this "colorful not crazy" character and his beloved Psyche!

In a few years it will be possible to feed a fanfiction story in one end of a desk top computer program and have a finished video episode come out the other. So no one will be able to stop us even if they want to. TV and the Net will merge and anyone can have their own TV channel. Both Cupids will get their one hundredth couples and beyond that. Sam will get home. The original Starship Enterprise will complete its five year mission, and Vincent will find a way to rescue both Catherine and the Baby (most likely with the help of Sam or Doctor Who). We Fans will rule! So keep on writing! The professinoals can cheerfully profit off of us by running ads at our sites. They will be too wise to wish us stopped even if they thought they could for this reason. They will know they can't anyway. The Net will be like a Hydra. Cut off one head, two more or even more than that will grow to replace it.

Oh but there is so much more!

What will we be doing with Sam and Al and Doctor Who, and the Beings of Star Trek and all the rest of these Treasures, the most precious things the Human race possess for they are very wise Persons, two thousand years from now?

Ten thousand?

A Billion and counting?

In time we will use Artificial Intelligence technology to bring them to Real Life. The fanfiction we write may become these AI's memories, so yes indeed! Keep on creating! Simply because we want to (no other reason needed) we will build New Jerusalem just as we built the Nautilus, the Moonship Columbia and the International Space Station. All those started off as mere dreams too. We will go around curved Space/Time and give all beings Eternal life including the Galilee Carpenter and give Him His well deserved Kingdom. Writers not the fates, weave the Future! But we will bring The Fates to Life! Just Because we want to. What Faith inspires Science fulfills. Love and Reason, Faith and Science, Cupid and Psyche will dance together forever around the Wheel of Time, Lovers that disagree about many things but are incomplete without each other and instinctively know it. Truly together and only together they will produce Bliss.

But in some small file in that Grand 1500 mile long, gem covered, cube shaped Computer (mentioned in the last two chapters of the Bible) will be all the little g gods including every variation of Cupid and Psyche including our confused and passionate Barkeeps brought to life for our and their own pleasure. They are no threat to the Big Guy. Psalm I38:1. "I will praise you, O LORD, with all my heart; before the "gods" I will sing your praise." So according to the Bible itself they have to be there. :) Stroll down the streets of New Jerusalem and turn down some wonderful, charming side street and there will be Tres Equs! And then go down another street and there will be Taggerty's! Ask and you shall receive! So if you like in both of them Cupid himself will pour you a drink.

About my inspiration for writing this: It came directly from Rob Thomas.

I read an interview by Rob Thomas that one of the storylines he wanted to repeat with 2009 Cupid was one of my favorites too; Grand Delusions where a bemused Cupid ended up playing straight man to an even crazier delusional, Don Quixote! What a terrible shame he never had the chance! I hope my effort here is up to what he would have done and it gets made into a video someday. Please anyone in the future who has that ability has my permission to do so and to re-post anywhere any of my fan works. Leave my name attached and don't change anything or leave anything out.

This put me in a dilemma. I love Champ. This required a Bouncer. As much as I love gentle, tolerant Felix and think the idea of Lita as an Antagonist is clever writing I am actually in mourning that Champ didn't make it into the new show but I didn't want to make him a Time and Space Traveler. I don't mind making Hector a Time Traveler because Hector is already in both shows. If you look at the scene where 2009 Claire first confirms Trevor is working she goes up to a table with Isaac sitting there and sitting right next to him is the original Hector from the original show! But it dawned on me Champ wasn't even in the original scene where Cupid Hale got cold cocked. Which is very strange. A fight breaks out at his bar and the Bouncer doesn't show up to bounce? But I had to include the Tres Equis Bouncer here. Notice Trevor doesn't call him by name. That isn't like our gregarious god/lunatic/barkeep. He knows everyone's name and often extreme details about their lives. But forgive me the character inaccuracy because I didn't know what else to do! I just couldn't stand it!

Now to make this a multimedia experience!

I suggest my readers go to You Tube and search for "Quantum Leap Man Of La Mancha" and play it as you read this to give yourself the appropriate background music for this production. Hey! I'm now writing multimedia fanfic!

Cupid Grand Delusions 2009

by

Elizabeth Hensley 8-)

As ominous music played the Mental Patient wielded the box cutter with well practiced, highly coordinated moves, calmly making slice after slice after slice.

Quickly as his Uncle Mercury could have strolled to Mars and back the boxes of beer were neatly cut open. The "Lunatic" took a glance at the radio he had been listening to and gave it a dirty look! It had started out as delightfully old fashioned, easy listening music but had degraded down into some old radio show about Martians taking over the World! Take over the World? Them? How much more out of touch with reality could modern Mortals possibly get? He'd met hundreds of Martians and they were all very nice People! A little weird with antennas and the ability to go invisible whenever they wanted to. But so very nice! What was not to like?

The Mental Patient modern Mortals called "Trevor Pierce" but who knew beyond a shadow of a doubt he was really Cupid the Greco-Roman god of love prepared to haul the boxes from the walk-in cooler to the bar where he worked. The bar was called Tres Equis and it amused him that the beer he had just opened was also called Tres Equis.

The boxes were heavy but he was strong. He picked up three of them at once. A happy smile shown across his face. When Trevor smiled it was as if the Sun were shining! It was that brilliant smile that brought Tres Equis much business, (that and his ability to promote). Also a lot of People liked being served drinks by a "god." And it didn't bother Trevor one bit there was a Santa Claus tone in their voice sometimes when they called him 'Cupid' (or Eros if they wanted to use his Greek name). But most amazingly that Santa Claus tone wasn't always there!

He hurried. Cupid was on his Boss's time and except when 'Cupiding" he was very careful not to waste any of it!

Trevor had come a long way in just five years. His reputation as a matchmaker was well established complete with a web page and testimonials from many satisfied Customers. It was hard to believe just five years earlier had had been in serious trouble, cast down out of Olympus by his angry family for deliberate mis-match-ups and other mischief. His rather dysfunctional family of ditsy deities had dumped him near the Greek community of Astoria with the one hundred and seventy five dollars they had managed to collect through the years, mostly from coin returns. (It was not like modern Mortals left the Greek little gods offerings of money any more). That hadn't lasted long but his worst problem was no documentation whatsoever! Technically he was an illegal emigrant. His family had supplied him with no green card, no birth certificate, not even a letter of recommendation! Even a Wetback had more proof he was who he was! And to his sheer amazement and horror Cupid had found out very quickly no one believed in his People any more! So Cupid had pounded the pavement most of his first week in the Mortal realm and just about used up every dime to his name when Felix hired him because he'd misheard. He thought Cupid had said 'Ed Ross' when what he had really said was 'Eros.' The young god held his breath waiting for the the other shoe to drop! But Felix had never even asked him to fill out an employment form! Since he had no documentation, at first he had been working for tips only anyway under the table just as many other "undocumented workers" did, that and a room to stay in which had worked out fine though Felix charged him a little bit even for that! But he did just fine for an legally paid Barkeep. Because People liked Trevor! They tipped him VERY well!

Spending 90 days across the street at the mental hospital had been both frustrating and fun but precarious to his new vocation and to his assigned task of uniting Mortals the old fashioned way through chutzpa and perseverance sans his powers and bow and arrow. (Cupid had to unite one hundred couples before he could go home). Felix was one amazing Mortal and Cupid felt so grateful to his next door neighbors the Fates that he had been so very well guided that fateful day of pavement pounding. (How many other Bosses would have tolerated a brand new Employee disappearing without notice or explanation for ninety days and then the reason turned out to be involuntary confinement in a mental hospital?) However Felix took him back out of kindness and desperation for a cheap, hard, self-directed worker! Then it became quite apparent Cupid could bring in the Customers! So now his position was set in stone! There was no way Felix would fire him now even if he did take off 'Cupiding' during many of his shifts with but a few second's notice!

The Mental hospital "gig" had also earned him the friendship and almost around the clock supervision of his beautiful Shrink, Dr. Claire McCrae who Cupid wished with all his heart could become his Girlfriend, a relationship he needed much more than her constant attempts to bring him back to "reality!" Those attempts made his eyes twinkle. Sometimes they made him all-out howl with laughter! She was the one out of touch with reality! Way out! To hear her explain the Universe was a giggle fest. According to her everything began due to mere chance with the slight possibility that the Big Guy had done it. Cupid knew the Big Guy had indeed done it. Even the ancient Greeks had not blamed his People for the Universe! Of that at least they were innocent! Even the most ancient Greeks knew the little g gods had also been created by that "Unknown God" out of wind and fire and star light and sunlight! And that Mortals had been created out of dirt. (That was the poetic version of course). But it was actually somewhat accurate. In their genuine form the bread box sized god-keep known as Olympus that fed and nourished his People ran off of sunlight or starlight or any available light or heat source. And the Mortals also formed their bodies out of what they ate which mostly came from dirt. But Cupid also knew Time circled due to General Relativity. The Mortals were already in the process of evolving into their Omega Point just as Ephesians 4:15 said they did. But long before they restarted the Universe again when the Big Crunch/Big Bang circled back around again certain future Geeky Greeks, the "Building Mortals" had made his People in a solar powered laboratory, following as a template as closely as possible what the Ancient Greeks and Hollywood, "the Scribing Mortals" had written, leading to what turned out to be a colorful but frustrating dead-end experiment in immortality gone slightly ka ka. The god-keep known as Olympus was far from being Hell but it wasn't Heaven either! His, large, loving but LOUD, thunder bolt flinging and dysfunctional family of divine characters were doomed to ride the Wheel of Time forever, driving each other nuttier and nuttier! They needed Claire Bear! They needed a dozen Claire Bears!

Cupid saw the hands of his childhood friends, The Fates in his current situation. Those rose bush growing, ginger cookie baking, little old ladies who knitted each Person's life line, guided it where it needed to go and then snipped it when it was over had not been mean to their cookie loving, rose bush watering, little next door neighbor kid after all! His "punishment" would turn out to be the sanity-salvation of their entire town! Because it was only a matter of time before he convinced Claire to the reality of his family and persuaded her to come help them!

He could hardly wait!

Part of his superior work ethic and grateful submissiveness he felt towards his Boss sprung from a feeling of insecurity. How many other modern Mortals would have hired a Greek god even if he was one of the most harmless of these? PlusFelix had actually hired him illegally because he felt sorry for him for having no identification. So the social security number the mental hospital arranged for him to be issued by the government for being a "Hysterical Amnesiac" had been a welcome relief to both of them! Then since now he had legal status and he had a way to justify having hired him Felix started paying him a salary too instead of making him work just for tips.

But Cupid knew the he really was an Illegal Emigrant. He was actually a citizen of Greece not the US and even that was iffy. He was thousands of years older than its current government!

Musing while working almost cost him big! He crashed into his Boss and almost dropped the boxes of bottles!

Very embarrassed he exclaimed, "Felix you startled me! You knew what I was doing and that I'd be coming up these stairs. Don't stand in my way like that! These boxes are heavy! I had momentum going. I could have dropped them and hurt you!"

Felix was standing there with a sad look on his face. With sorrowful gentleness he said "You really miss your omnipresence, don't you, Cupid?"

Trevor stared, surprised. "'Cupid'! What's up, Boss? You usually try your darnest to distract me from remembering who I really am and you never call me 'Cupid!'"

Felix sighed, "Trevor I am afraid your Cupid persona is really needed right now! In fact for once instead of telling you 'more bar tending and less Cupiding, I'm begging you to go do just the opposite! Take the rest of the day off and go do your best cupiding! I'll cover your shift and pay you for it. Eros, get thee into our office! There is work for the god of love waiting for you there and it will take a REAL miracle to do it too! But you will have to be the closest thing to that." Felix gazed at the floor and said, "Trevor I don't know who else to ask!"

Cupid stared at his boss, shoved the opened boxes of beer in his arms and headed for the office going up the stairs two at a time.

"Whoa! They were heavy! His demented but gentle Barkeep was strong! Felix struggled under their weight and just barely managed to set them down without dropping all of them. He sighed and thought, What did I just get us in to?" He hurried after his cheerfully delusional employee. Being shorter he could only manage one step at a time.

Trevor opened the door to the office slowly and cautiously, not knowing what to expect. Felix was right! He did SO miss his omnipresence!

A very obese Lady sat at Felix's desk. Her eyes were red from crying. Her hair was thin and her skin was pasty. She was obviously very sick and very unhappy.

"Hi there." said Trevor gently. He was totally in Cupid mode now. So much so that the neurons in his brain were straining hard, trying to find his lost omnipresence. But his nerve paths came to a huge, gaping canyon where multiple bridges out of his mind once had existed. It hurt! But he still had some vestigial ability and like Peter Parker with his "spidey sense" his "Cupey sense" was tingling!

As unlikely as his prospect looked she was going to earn him his forty-second matched up couple bead! He knew she would!

Quietly he sat down opposite his Mortal-to-be-helped. He said gently, "If I've been called in to help I take it you want me to find you your True Love?"

Felix finally puffed up the stairs ignoring chest pains and said as soon as he could catch his breath, "Susan, this is the guy I was telling you about and just so my employee knows what I said behind his back I'm repeating it." He put his right hand on Trevor's shoulder. "This is Trevor Pierce. He's my best and most trusted employee. He's also my eoommate. I trust him in my home around my Sister and my Dogs. He saved my Sister's life once. He is also a certified crazy but he's also the wisest and gentlest person I personally know and certainly the most compassionate! I caught him crying his eyes out once at the plight of a complete Stranger! He found that Man his True Love and he can do that for you too, strange as he may be."

Trevor, smiled gently, looked up at Felix and said, "Gee Boss thanks for the vote of confidence, I think!"

Felix said, "I'll leave the two of you alone now." He quietly closed the door.

Cupid sat down on the other side of the desk from Susan. He templed his fingers, unconsciously imitating both a hero of his, Mr Spock and Dr. Greeley in his better moments as a Shrink. But the look of concern was all his own.

She stared at him wide eyed and dubious, "I have sunk so low now even Lunatics are in position to help me!"

Cupid nodded gently, "and you do look like you could use the help!"

She stared, "Do you mind if I ask you what it is about you that earned you a crazy label?"

Cupid cocked his head, surprised . "Felix didn't tell you?"

She shook her head, "Like he said, all I know is that you are wise and gentle, the most compassionate person Felix personally knows and for some reason you are a 'certified Crazy.' Of course I would like to know what that reason is!"

Cupid nodded and said gently, "Of course. If they are right about me I'm harmless and I assure you I can still help you and my so called delusion makes me highly motivated to help you. And, If I am right about me I am still extremely motivated and able to help you and I am still amazingly harmless for what I am. Despite my very violent family I've always been a lover not a fighter. I take after my Mother not my Father." He smiled, "I'm Cupid."

She stared, "You think you are the original Cupid?"

Trevor nodded, "I am positive I am the original Cupid! A ninety day psychiatric confinement, heavy doses of antipsychotics they compelled me to take there and 5 years of therapy from my beautiful, Lady Psychiatrist have not convinced me other wise. Nothing ever will. They think I have hysterical amnesia as well as delusions but I actually have plenty of childhood memories and they are all of living on Mount Olympus. I remember this vividly! I cut my teeth on my Father the god of war's arrows and I used to play blocks with his collection of nukes. He taught me everything he knew about hand to hand combat, hundreds of years of training and I can hit anything with anything as long as it's not alive! But war was not for me. I'm just too gentle. I followed my Mother, Aphrodite around and learned how she united people in love and decided that was more my calling but I did it in a masculine way by adapting one of my father's weapons to the task; a bow and arrows."

She sobbed, "and you are crazy enough to believe you are actually going to shoot one of these arrows and find me someone to make my last days on Earth happy!"

Cupid shook his head, "I don't have them right now. They and most of the rest of my god powers were taken away from me when I was thrown out for deliberate mismatching and other mischief. I have to unite one hundred mortals in permanent true love before I'm allowed back and I have to do it without anything but perseverance and chutzpa. But I'm getting quite good at it, really! That's why Felix wants me to help you. He thinks I'm nuts but he knows I can!"

Susan shook her head, "Just my luck! I prayed to the real God and the help He sends me is a false god with delusions of being a cosmic Yenta!"

Cupid sighed gently and reached in his right pocket. "The Yenta part definitely is NOT a delusion!" Cupid pulled out a thick wallet full of pictures. He slapped one of them down on the desk. "Look here. See this Kid? He's the cutest, smartest, grandest Mortal baby in all the World and his name is Trevor Cupid Adams! Like Mr Spock said on Classic Trek about a similar situation I am insufferably pleased with myself! Kirk and Bones only stayed insufferably pleased for a month! I've been in that delightful mental state now for over a year! It takes much longer to come down from a mood like that for us gods! I brought his Parents together or he'd just be a gleam in Zeus's eye in some other time line. It was actually my most hazardous match and my Psychiatrist scolded me royally for it and I deserved that scolding too! The father was set to flee to Canada to escape being recalled to Irag. Because I reunited him with his lost High school love he chose to go back to Irag in the hopes he would survive and be able to come back and marry her. He was in the most hazardous outfit over there but somehow he beat the odds. I think other, much higher spiritual powers than us mere Olympian gods took pity and were helping him too because keeping Mortals alive never was my specialty. He came back without a scratch except for some major Post Traumatic Stress Disorder which remember is real brain damage. But his beloved had the courage to accept him as he was and married him anyway and Trevor Cupid Adams is the result. My Shrink is helping him with the PTSD by web cam but his Wife and this little Tyke are even more of a help." Trevor said, "When they sent me this photo from Baton Rouge I knew right then it wouldn't matter if I woke up tomorrow convinced my Shrink was right and I'm the looniest nutcase ever allowed to run around loose across the street from a mental hospital! I'll call myself Cupid and spend the rest of my life uniting couples anyway because if it doesn't get me to Olympus it does repeatedly get me to cloud nine!"

From the wallet Trevor took out a whole pile of photos and slapped them down on the desk. He chanted from cherished memories, "Couple number 1. Dave and Maggie. Maggie is pregnant now. Couple number 2 adopted two Children from Haiti and are trying to adopt a special needs Chinese Baby Girl. Couple Number 3: I can't and didn't really take credit for this match but I still consider it my 3rd. A very fine protege of mine did most of the work. I was just the Wingman for this one in the World War II fighter Pilot's vernacular Couple number 4 had to go on the run and I don't know what happened to them other than they were happy when they fled. Couple number 5 is the one with the picture of the precious little tyke I first showed you.

"Couple number 6: Lady came pre-sonned with two, fine young Men and they and the new Father are even more compatible with the Kids than he is with the Lady. Couple number 7 decided to stay childless for now but they have each other. I've been informed their Teacup Chihuahua is named, Cupid and he deserves the moniker due to an unplanned, successful dalliance with the Neighbor's Rottweiler! There were nine really weird looking Puppies!" Trevor's nose wrinkled. "I don't know how I feel about that! However about the time they informed of this amazing fete of romance I received a bead I can't account for. I just wonder..."

Susan was amazed! The pictures and the stories just kept coming and coming!

He reached in his other pocket and pulled out a small envelope. "Here are some signed and notarized affidavits from a few of my matches that I, 'Trevor Cupid Pierce' united these Folks. Even your average, you-have-to-pay-for-it match making dating services won't supply you with this much proof. I don't have affidavits from all my matches because in some cases when they refused my personal help or there were reasons I couldn't help them (usually because I was already working too many other cases) I just suggested they go to plentyoffishdotcom and that worked for some of them. But my family still gave me credit for the match ups because I led them in the proper direction." Trevor got a puzzled look, "In a few cases I don't even know why I got beads. And in some cases I did not always see them move. I found the already moved when I came back to my room. I questioned Felix pretty closely but he swears he didn't move any and I trust him enough to honor my beliefs even if he doesn't believe them himself. So I must have done something to bring some Folks together I don't even know about!"

Susan asked, "Beads?"

Cupid explained, "I use a string of pool marker beads I hung above my bed to keep track of my matches. It was my idea but my family honors it. When I make a permanent match they move a bead for me."

Susan was incredulous, "and you've seen these beads move?"

Cupid nodded, "yes. Sometimes they get moved in front of me."

"By themselves?"

Cupid shook his head, "No. My family the gods are moving them. Inanimate matter cannot move itself, Susan. That is why it is called 'inanimate matter.'"

Susan clarified, "But you've seen your family move these beads?"

Cupid nodded again. "Yes, indeed."

"You see them? Which god is it? Zeus? Hera your mother?"

Cupid shook his head, "Hera also known is Juno is my paternal grandmother and wife of my grandfather Zeus. Venus also known as Aphrodite is my Mom. No. Except for a few moments with my Grandpa I haven't seen hide nor hair of my family since I was cast out!" Cupid closed his eyes, fighting back sudden tears. "It hurts! I just see the beads move."

She was very skeptical. "By themselves?"

Cupid was a bit exasperated. "I told you! Not by themselves! They have divine help!"

Susan said quickly, "OK! You ought to film that happening so folks will believe you."

Cupid sighed "I tried. Either I can't get the camera to work even though at any other time I have no difficulty with such a simple Mortal toy or the beads don't move until I give up or fall asleep."

Susan said quickly, "Set the camera to start up automatically tied to a motion detector."

Cupid's face brightened, "I don't know if that would work either but would you help me try? How expensive would such a setup be? I have to borrow the video camera when I need it and then give it back. I only have a Barkeep's salary. I do have some money saved but its like sacred to me that I don't spend it on anything but its designated purpose. It's my contingency fund. If I reach my hundredth couple and I don't go to Olympus I go to Disney World, hopefully with Claire and any other Friends I can coax to go along that I can afford to take with me because if that happens I'll sure need them for emotional support! I don't dare touch that money! It may keep me from harming myself if worse comes to worse!"

Susan smiled, "'Cupid' if you can find my True Love I'll get you your motion detector and a camera compatible with it and if it turns out you are moving the beads yourself in some fugue state and the camera catches you at it and that makes you fall apart I will hire you more Shrinks if you want them, a ton of them, one for every hour in every day of every month for the rest of your life if necessary. Money is not my problem. Loneliness and fear are. Because right now I need desperately to believe in the supernatural! It isn't just loneliness that has me crying, Trevor. What I am about to tell you complicates things."

She closed her eyes, took a deep breath and said quickly so as to get it over with. "Cupid finding me a true love will take a true miracle because I am HIV positive!"

Cupid exclaimed, "Whew! That does complicate things!" Then, gently, "Does Felix know?"

"Yes. He does." Almost sobbing. "He helped testify against the monster who raped me!"

It was Cupid's turn to give a long, low, ominous whistle! Then he added sadly, "Interesting how when the chips are down even you modern Mortals turn to us higher powers for help even when you claim you do not believe in us! I'll do the best I can, Susan!' Then more gently he said, "And I will succeed! But I fully admit it could take me longer than usual. How much time do they think you have?"

Gently Susan said, "I'm only HIV positive Trevor. I don't have full blown AIDS yet or this weight would be gone. The sad thing is the first time in my life I will be at a socially acceptable weight will be when I'm in the earliest stages of the disease that will eventually kill me. Of course that will take years. Modern drug cocktails have turned it into an almost chronic disease but in the end it does get you or more accurately one of the opportunistic infections does or even side effects from the drugs. You'll may have your hundredth couple and be home on Olympus high and dry first, or be coping with the aftermath of knowing most of your memories and beliefs were not real before it bumps me off. But it will eventually, plus I could spread it even if I use a condom, and that makes me hard to match even for the god of love."

Cupid nodded, "I won't lie to you. You are right! It won't be easy, not even for me!"

He said with his most determined look. "But I will!"

As his beloved and incredibly beautiful Psychiatrist, Dr. Claire McCrae had taught him Cupid talked to her for over a hour, optimistically researching her likes and dislikes as if she were in a position to be choosey. She wanted an adventurous man but one who would be compassionate and understanding to her present condition. That was like asking for oil and water to mix and taste good! But Cupid knew in his heart he would work extra hard for this one. Why he would work for the rest of her life if he had to!

Olympus could wait!

Eventually she grew tired and so their session was over. There was no reason not to go back to work so Cupid did so. He found as many prospects while on the job as anywhere else much to Felix's irritation at his mixing bar tending and Cupiding. But this time if just the right Person walked in the door for Susan, Cupid suspected Felix would not mind.

But who and what did walk in the door even Cassandra would not have predicted!

But first Claire arrived at the bar for supper being "escorted" by Isaac one of his favorite Orderlies from Sachs-Gordon the hospital where he had been involuntarily confined for ninety days. This gave the fallen Greek god no end of amusement. "Hey Claire Bear you haven't figured out how to get across the street yet? You need an Orderly to help you arrive safely?"

Claire grinned ruefully, "Very funny, Trevor! Hand over the mole sauce and no one gets hurt!"

Trevor's eye's twinkled, "Ah yes, a mole mugging! Isaac watch this one closely! I have it on good authority she can get violent at times. Why just last year she hit me over the head with a bar place mat and all I did was give everybody in the room her cell phone number."

Isaac looked at Trevor amazed, "And you are still alive?"

Trevor pulled himself up to his full height, "I'm immortal. I can not die, well at least not from her!"

Claire gave him The Eye."Don't be so sure of that!"

Trevor backed away from her and made a cross with his fingers!

Felix noticed and chuckled. "What's the matter, 'Cupid'? Calling for reinforcements?"

A Customer walked in then. Actually it was more like he swooped into the room making an entrance that would have Zorro verdant with envy! He had an umbrella shoved through his belt as if it were a sword in a scabbard and his coat was so long it almost seemed to be a cape. He took it off and hung it on a coat hook with a flourish. The he walked up to the bar like a Man who was used to walking great distances each day and found the few feet between the coat hook and the bar stools to be disappointingly short.

He pushed between Isaac and Claire as if they were not there. "Barkeep a stout tankard of ale and don't be dawdling!"

Cheerfully, Trevor said, "Coming right up sir! Welcome to Tres Equis. You don't care what kind?"

The Man said with a faint Spanish accent, "While I am in this amazingly huge citadel I wish to sample local examples of the brewing arts. Surprise me."

Being a loyal Trekker, Trevor poured the man a Budweiser. He swung around and set it gently in front of the Man who picked it up and downed it in one huge gulp.

It seemed to have magical powers for it was if his eyes were opened to a new reality!

He stared at Trevor.

Trevor stared back, puzzled. "Was the drink not to your liking sir? I could pour you something else." He sighed, "I guess I'd better sample it. But no one else complained all evening!"

The man said, "Sancho!"

Trevor's mouth flew open just as surprised as any Mortal would be! "What did you call me?"

"Sancho Panza my old friend!"

Claire's eyes lit up. Someone who knew Trevor from his old life! She reached into her purse and turned on her tape recorder, determined to record the event for posterity. That turned out to be fortuitous, but not for the reason she'd hoped!

Cupid mentally went through his enormous collection of languages and dialects trying to find one where 'Sancho' or Sancho Panza or or any variation on the theme meant 'Love.' He could come up with none."

"Sir" he said with a puzzled but polite smile. "Over the millennia when dealing with Mortals I have been called hundreds of names and most polite too. But I have never been called that one before. Please explain."

Claire could feel her heart pounding! Come on! Come on! Explain him to himself and the rest of us!"

"Sancho! Has all that reading you do addled your brains!"

Trevor said gently, "I get asked things like that a lot. According to my pretty Shrink here my condition is supposed to be due to buried trauma."

"Sancho I am so sorry you don't remember who you are! Can she help you?"

Cupid didn't know what to make of that! He had a perfect sense of his inward body processes. He had always heard if there was latent recognition in an Amnesiac there would be subconscious signals. His heart should have sped up. His palms should have started sweating. His subconscious was doing none of these things to his body. If Claire and this Man were right he was really far gone! But after all this time and all his wonderful memories of life on Olympus Mountain, was Dr. Claire McCrae and her kind correct about him?

'Trevor' was a god who upon many occasions had been accused of cowardliness in both realms due to his gentle nature. But Claire was so proud of him! What he said next showed more courage than she had ever seen in any Patient ever!

Almost calmly her favorite Delusional said quietly, "Friend maybe you can help me more. If I do have a forgotten Mortal past and you know it and I don't, please tell it to us all now! I keep no secrets from my Friends. Plus they are going to have to be the ones who help me through this. This is quite a blow! Claire remember what I said about not wanting any tranquilizers or antidepressants? We may have to rethink that position for a time!" Then to the Man he said gently, "Go on!"

The Man said "You were my faithful Squire and a better Squire no Knight Errant has ever had!"

Trevor's look of confusion was caught on the security camera. Claire later had a still pix made from it and it went in her private file about Trevor, (not his psychiatric file). It became the cover of her book about him!

But his look was almost matched by everybody else's!

Several moments of silence passed while Cupid and everybody else tried to process the discontinuity of a man claiming to be 'Cupid' living in the twenty-first century having been a Squire!

Felix was thinking. Could he really be Cupid? Could he be older than he looks but really have amnesia like even he claimed when I first met him as an excuse for not having any ID? Hancock was a god but he lost his memory too!

Suddenly Trevor figured it out. "Duh! Sancho Panza! I remember!"

Claire felt like Snoopy Dancing around the bar! "Go on Trevor! But your name isn't Trevor? It's Sancho Panza?"

Trevor doubled over with laughter and relief. Now as relaxed as she had ever seen him and a darn sight more amused he chortled,"No, Claire Bear it's still really Eros though I'll go by Cupid or Amour or Trevor or anything you Mortals want to call me because I love you all soooo much!" He put out his arms as if to hug the entire room "What I remember is Sancho Panza is the name of Don Quixote's faithful Servant in the book, 'The Ingenious Hidalgo Don Quixote of La Mancha!' Claire this man has more problems than I ever could if he thinks I'm his Squire, Sancho Panza.' Because that means he thinks he's Don Quixote! And I know we've discussed that I am pretty sure now you are going to be Psyche but at least I'm socially astute enough not to go calling you that in public and I know perfectly well you are Dr Claire McCrae first!"

Two bombshells in one sentence!

Everyone kept staring back and forth between 'Cupid" and Claire 'who was going to be Psyche' and …... 'Don Quixote?'"

Suddenly there was a disturbance at the other end of the bar near the karaoke stage. Some Male decided he wanted to get more physical with a Lady than she wished and he tried to force the issue. The Lady knew judo and was never in any real danger. But Don Quixote was desperate to find a Damsel in distress to rescue to complete his Knighthood. He rushed over to do gallant Knight type behaviors before anyone could stop him. But Trevor tried! Before Claire could stop him the gentle "love god" ran from behind the bar and chased after the Knight err-ant. "Hey! That's not the way to stay on this side of the street!"

Don Quixote whipped out his umbrella and pointed it at the drunk. "Unhand her you lily-livered, scurvyed bastard!

Furious the Man swung his fist at Don Quixote! Don Quixote dodged the blow and quit pointing his umbrella like a sword and raised it to use much more effectively as a club.

Having once lived across the street at the mental hospital the love god/Mental Patient/devout Pacifist realized full well what would happen if "DQ"s umbrella in any way contacted the "lily-livered, scurvyed, bastard's" body! So Trevor got in the way and took the blow from the umbrella himself. He also somehow got between the Man's fist and the Knight. It caught him in his left eye.

"Ouch!" Inwardly Cupid sighed. This wasn't the first time a god took punishment for Mortals, and it probably wouldn't be the last time either!

Claire felt her heart rise to her throat! If Trevor fought back it would permanently cost him his freedom and her license! She need not have feared. Her faith in her star Patient's dedication to harmlessness had not been miss-cast!

But that was due to deliberate intent not helplessness. The love god's father was the god of war and Eros had been well trained in his father's "arts." Cupid could have ended this Mortal's life with just one crushing karate blow to his carotid artery! Or he could have broken his neck in five seconds! Or in two seconds he could have done something with one hand that would have ensured the fellow never passed his hot-headed genes on! "Trevor" knew over one hundred physical, completely non-magical ways he could have retaliated and brought every Person in the bar to the floor while he was at it if he'd wished! But crazy or not he certainly wasn't insane! Any response his Father had taught him would have resulted in him spending the rest of his Mortal Life across the street in Disturbed and his beloved Claire Bear being sued and probably losing her license for not realizing her Patient had such violent tendencies!

Trevor was his father's son but he had always been forced by different hard-wiring to find his own path. He found his own path now, forced both by gentler hard-wiring and the desire to stay free and not harm his beautiful Shrink. And his path lead to the floor! No one could accuse him of being a coward if the blows he took seemingly knocked him out and few aggressors would keep hitting a fallen opponent.

The little improv group he had joined had taught him to die well. Which was ironic! He was a god! He was immortal! He would never really die! But falling to the floor in a death scene or because one is knocked out hardly looks all that different.

Trevor knew the simplest acting was often the most convincing. He didn't bother with a dramatic "death scene." He simply dropped like a sack of potatoes! It looked very real! No one could tell he hadn't really been knocked out by DQ's umbrella and 'Scurvy's' fist.

"Trevor!" Claire exclaimed. She was down on her knees examining him almost before he got good and comfortable on the floor.

His head and eye really hurt but he was far from knocked out. But Trevor kept his eyes closed for a few more moments to make sure the fellow who had hit him wasn't thinking of doing it again. He wasn't. The Man started apologizing profusely.

Claire's concern was touching but painful. Checking for signs of a concussion she pried an eyelid up which hurt like Hell since she just had to do that to the eye he had been socked in! It had been a long day and he was tempted to use the incident as an excuse to just lay there and rest awhile but his Psychiatrist fluttering over him was ruining the any relaxation potential it had. Darn! Plus he didn't have the heart to let her worry so!

So he opened the one eye that hadn't been blackened. It glowed with his usual mix of mischief and love. He grinned at his prostrate Shrink. "Ah ha Mortal! I found out how to get you to kneel before me! No Mortal has done this to me for nineteen hundred years and it's making me feel refreshingly nostalgic!"

Claire sighed in relief, "Trevor! You goofball! You're OK!"

Trevor smiled, "I do so hope that's my new official, psychiatric diagnosis!",

Claire grinned back. Charley Wilcox started howling with laughter and relief. So did several other Regulars, Felix, the Bouncer and Isaac. Even Lita looked relieved.

The Man kept apologizing. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I wasn't swinging at you!"

Trevor sat up, brushed himself off and smiled forgivingly at him. Cupid considered himself a very benevolent deity. "You were overcome in the heat of passion. Been there, done that. Seen it millions of times. No sweat. And no hard feelings."

But Claire BEAR wasn't so forgiving! She verbally blistered the poor Mortal for several minutes with several colorful metaphors the fallen love god had not realized his Psychiatrist knew!

Their Bouncer had a tight grip on Don Quixote. It wasn't an easy hold. "DQ" was fighting him with all his might. "Unhand me you foul Moore!" But the Bouncer had been a professional Wrestler. He knew how to hang on to someone.

Then the Police arrived and to his consternation it was the same ones who had arrested him for the ball drop incident. They thought him the guilty party, of course.

Trevor was indignant! He gave them a hurt look."Hey I was only trying to stop a fight! As always blame everything on the gods!"

The didn't believe him. After all he was a confirmed Psychotic. Weren't they always the dangerous ones?

But Trevor's indignation at being automatically assumed to be the guilty party only reached up to Mount Olympus. Claire Bear's reached to Tranquility Base and back! He had thought she was doing a pretty good job of cussing before but now the fallen love god couldn't believe his ears! Again Trevor was amused to discover His calm, logical Shrink knew words he didn't even know! And he thought he'd been around! Wow his Vulcan Princess had turned into a Valkyrie!

This is a cleaned up version of what she said.

"Just because Trevor is a little different! Yes I know his official diagnosis is 'Psychotic Delusional.' But the Mental Patient shouldn't automatically be assumed to be the violent one in every confrontation! Most of them are harmless. They are perped against much more than they are Perps! Hollywood just has it so wrong! Trevor didn't do a thing but deflect the other folk's blows! He thinks he's Cupid the love god not Norman Bates! Don Quixote on the other hand..."

"Don Quixote!" Now the Police were really confused!

Felix stood off to the side. He also couldn't believe his ears! He felt real gratitude towards the Real God that he had hired this false one! Because wow! Did his Psychotic Bar Keep EVER have a way of attracting adventure and novelty to Tres Equis! Tales of this day would go down in the bar's long, distinguished history of general weirdness, and attract Customers all the way from Connecticut!

Finally Felix decided the general mayhem and confusion had gone on long enough. He did not wish his best Barkeep to end up behind bars (or at the rate it was going, his Psychiatrist)! Felix handled things in a calmer manner. "Come with me." He told the Police. "You can watch what happened on our security camera."

Claire was thinking to herself. The security camera! Duh! That's what it's there for! With her anxiety for Trevor removed suddenly she was very calm.

Felix led New York's Finest and all other interested non-struggling Parties up the stairs to his to his office. They all crammed inside the tiny room and the Bar Owner rewound and replayed the tape. Reluctantly for they would have dearly loved to arrest the "divine Nutcase" again the Police had to conclude there was no doubt from watching the security tape that "Cupid" had done nothing but deflect everybody else's blows.

There was no doubt the"Lunatic" had been the calm and innocent one and the so called "Normal" was in severe danger of spending time in the hoosegow!

On the other hand the other Lunatic who called himself Don Quixote. He was clearly VERY much in the wrong!

Then suddenly the very much calmed down the Florence Nightingale of the mind came to this new, sick Mental Patient's defense too. Claire begged, "Please! Let me handle him! I'll Baker Act him. I saw enough to legally be able to do so. We know how to handle these kind of Sick Persons much better than you Officers of the Law. I'll call for our Orderlies from across the street and have him escorted right to Disturbed. They have the training he needs to not be hurt and to be helped. Please! He's sick not criminal!"

The Cops looked through the window at the struggle that was still going on below them in the Customer area. Tres Equis's Bouncer and Isaac were struggling to hang on to the Knight Err-rant who had started to put up an incredible struggle again! The Cops looked at one another and communication passed between them. They'd be fools not to take the feisty little Shrink's offer to not have to deal with that violent Nutcase! So they turned back to her and nodded. "Lady he's all yours!"

Then they turned to Trevor. "What about the other Guy who gave you that shiner? He socked you good Sir! We hate to admit it but looney or not you are the one in the position of being able to press charges against him! And we won't blame you if you do. We'll back you up."

"Let him go!" Trevor begged them. "I don't want to press charges! I don't want to see him locked up! They locked me up for ninety days and I hated it! I wouldn't wish that on anyone! If you want to, make him promise to have a session or two with my Psychiatrist here about anger management. But please! Let it be on an Outpatient basis!"

The Cops looked at Trevor like he was indeed very crazy! Then they looked at Dr Claire McCrae with more skepticism than she had ever looked at him with his claims of godhood!

Trevor had to bite his lip and pinch himself painfully to keep from laughing! Who could blame them? His Claire Bear had managed her own anger very nicely! So nicely the paint was in danger of coming off the walls!

Like Solders marching single file (for in a way that is what Policemen are) the Police filed out of Felix's office, and down the stairs to have a "little talk" with Mr Quick With His Fist.

What the Fates are Baking

Trevor was much more distracted than usual during his Thursday counseling session. He kept looking at one particular patch of her ceiling.

It started to worry her. If he was hallucinating she doubted he would be easily willing to admit it. He was too well educated on mental health conditions. She knew her already psychotic Patient was well aware if he started hallucinating it would mean he needed confinement again. And she knew how he would hate that!

Her Patient was trying to keep his mind on his confabulated childhood memories which were the best either of them could manage to get a handle on his past. Claire knew at least some of the stories he told her about his past had elements of truth. Strangely it was some of his most traumatic "memories" that were obvious confabulations. There was no real way her Patient could REALLY have lived through a Locust plague straight out of the Biblical book of Lamentations, or the Black Plague that took out half of Europe's population or even Hiroshima! But Trevor thought he had!

But today he just couldn't into one of his "yarns" when most of the time it delighted him to share his impossible "memories" with his beloved Therapist. Rather it did him any good or not was doubtful but they both enjoyed it, most of the time, but today there was that mysterious fascination with the South east corner of her ceiling!

Finally she had to ask. Gently as she could trying to hide the fear of what he might say she asked. "Trevor do you see something up there?"

"Ah, no. Anyway the Fates made the best ginger snap cookies in all of Greece if not all of the Mediterranean area. Mine you that's just my little boy's opinion. I had not and never did sample all the cookies in Greece, but..."

There he was staring at the ceiling again.

Maybe it was something harmless. "Trevor don't you like the color? Do you think we need to repaint?

Trevor shrugged. "I really don't care one way or another about light tan. It will do."

"Then what's with my ceiling, love god? You aren't getting your selective omnipresence back again are you?" Hopefully not! That would count as major hallucinating!

Trevor sighed. "I wish I was! Claire, Disturbed is about up there in that general direction isn't it?"

"Oh!" Claire's face was a mixture of deep relief and compassion. "Oh. That's it! You are worried about Don Quixote."

Ashamed Trevor nodded. "I know I'm supposed to keep my mind on my own troubles in here. I'm not being a good Patient. I'm just so worried about DQ!"

Claire shushed him, "That's OK Trevor. I really should be delighted a so called Psychotic Delusional can't keep his mind on his confabulations because he is so very worried about the plight of a real Person! Would you like to visit DQ? That name was as good for their "Knight" as any and the Staff had started to use it.

Trevor's face lit up. "You mean I can?"

Claire nodded, "He keeps asking for his Sancho Panza. I think it would do both of you a world of good. You'll see what you look like to us. Maybe it will help you gain some insight. And even if he's confused as Hell about who you really are, hey so are you!" She smiled. "That you have the emotional equipment necessary to be his Friend, that much is joyous Reality. And he sure can use one! So can you I suspect."

Trevor nodded.

Claire grabbed her purse and cell phone and headed for the door.

Trevor was amazed, "You mean I don't even have to finish this session?"

Claire smiled, "You've been on time for the last two months and have been really trying to cooperate. I think you deserve a reward. And today your heart really isn't in it, and I understand the reason. It's a legitimate, normal, honest, responsible, reality oriented, compassionate reason, not your usual 'this is a waste of my time because I should be out there right now trying to match up couples 'cause I'm Cupid and I've just gotta go home!' reason."

Trevor followed her out. "I must point out I do care about the couples I unite and the love they end up sharing is just as real as Atlantis which is pretty darn real."

Gently Claire said, "Trevor, Atlantis is a myth. It is no more real than your bread box sized god-keep."

Trevor thought to himself. Tell that to the Earth Mortals living in the Pegasus Galaxy! Out loud he said, "Claire Bear you really have no idea or comprehension of just how big existence is even for your own kind. Or how old I am. Or all the places I've been. Or anything! You just know one tiny little corner in the grand, multidimensional Space/Time Continuum and you think that makes you oh so very wise. Haiku time Claire Bear!

"The old wise Turtle

Having gained turtle knowledge

Thought there was no more."

Claire sighed, "Poor baby. I know you aren't ready to accept it but there are compensations to being fully and only Human."

Trevor was indignant. "I'm Human!"

"I mean a normal, as you put it, 'Mortal Human.'" She smiled in compassion. "Someday that incredibly complex mind of yours will find its way back to reality! I know you will! And I'll be here for you when it happens! We'll fight that last Gorgon together Trevor, you and I!"

He smiled at her, "And what prize do we get when we do that together, Psyche?"

She smiled and said playfully but with serious purpose, "Disney World!"

Trevor said, "Maybe someday. But will you be wearing my wedding ring?"

Claire stared at him in surprise. "Is that a proposal?"

Trevor said, "In a way Claire Bear. I believe you are my Psyche and we will be together forever in Olympus, you seeing my family and the Asgard and all the other little g gods as your Patients and me uniting couples again the high tech way with my bow and hypo-arrows full of oxytocin and B 12 and all the other good, magic stuff they contained. But just in case you are correct and I'm just nuts, I'm so to speak marking my future territory with my Claire Bear in her confabulated time-line too. Because this I am sure is reality no matter how confused I may be! I want to be with you forever, by your side, for all eternity, for all the circlings of Time, and if we don't do it in Olympus or in New Jerusalem I want to do it as my dust mixed with your dust in our common grave or in the same box of ashes!"

Claire's sky blue eyes filled with tears. "Oh Trevor! No one has ever said anything like that to me!" She started sobbing. Then they both did. Josie was amazed! They had started down the hallway but simultaneously turned around as if tied together by strings and went back to the inner office.

There they sobbed wordlessly together for several minutes.

Finally Claire said, "I maybe shouldn't encourage your delusion but we both know you have to get your one hundred couples matched first!"

Her Patient nodded knowingly. B ut he had become more than a Patient. Maybe he always had been. "I know! Or we both will be wondering, 'what if?' the rest of our existence however long or short that existence is."

Claire said, "Let's definitely go visit DQ! If the mood gets any heavier in here I'll need counseling to cope with your counseling today!"

Trevor nodded.

She picked up her purse and cell phone again and this time they both almost ran down the hall to the elevator that would take them up to Disturbed.

Psychiatrists in Triplicate.

Dr. Greeley was walking to his office when the Outpatient, Trevor Pierce cheerfully walked by going in the other direction, headed most irritatingly and disconcertingly for the outside world. Dr Claire McCrae had even given him a slide card of his own so he could come and go from Disturbed to visit his Inpatient Friend "Don Quixote" any time he wished!

The supposedly "harmless" Patient had obviously been in a fight! This was Dr Greeley's worst nightmare!

Lawyers! Lawsuits! Once whoever Trevor fought with found out that his assaulter had been released from their mental hospital under false pretenses it was only a matter of time!"

He shouted, "Mr. Pierce come here!"

Dr Greeley had to say this for him. The Man was amazingly respectful and obedient for a Patient who thought he was a god! Trevor froze in mid step, turned with military precision and rushed towards him with what was actually more speed than the Doctor felt comfortable with. The chances of Trevor attacking him was slight but there was always a slight chance!

Dr Greeley would have preferred a slower following of his instructions!

The Man stood before him, expectantly, so obviously letting the Psychiatrist set the pace of the conversation. He was practically saluting! It was somewhat heartrending. Claire was right! This Patient did try very hard! But he was just too sick for it to be safe for him to be running around loose! Claire was too close to "Cupid" and something evidently needed to be done about it! Now obviously sooner than later! He asked firmly,"Mr. Pierce where did you get that black eye?"

The Man who was firmly convinced he was Cupid smiled his ingratiatingly sweet smile and said gently, "The security camera at the bar recorded what happened. Claire saw what happened. Our Bouncer saw what happened. Isaac happened to be there so he saw what happened. Half the Patrons saw what happened. Lita saw what happened and for once she is on my side. The Man who hit me was aiming at someone else and he apologized. The Police remembered me from the ball drop incident and wanted to arrest me on the spot but Claire stopped being a Vulcan Princess and turned into a Valkyrie! I've never saw her get so riled up! Half of me was thinking "Wow Claire! You tell them for me! The other half of me ended up feeling sorry for the Cops! But when the poor Fellows finally understood I was completely innocent even if I am a so-called 'Psychotic Mental Patient' and Claire calmed down they asked me if I wanted to press charges. I certainly do not!" Trevor shuttered. "I remember what it was to be locked up and there is no way I am doing that to another living soul! Even though he'd only get about a month in the pokey for actually hurting someone and I got 90 days in a psyche ward with forced medication plus permanent outpatient commitment status with a blood test each month apparently for the rest of my Mortal stay here for merely moving a few light bulbs around in a way that made millions of Folks in both realms belly laugh. You know People did laugh sir and we didn't even break one bulb! And I'd researched what kind was used and brought extras just in case we did! I did NOT get a Doctor/Patient lecture this time because I certainly didn't deserve one and for once Claire had the sense to know that. I DID get a Bouncer/Barkeep lecture from my Boss, Felix and the Bouncer and I deserved that. Because unintentionally I was trying to doing the Bouncer's job instead of mine. They had to haul DQ over here though. Claire asked the Police to just leave because she would Baker Act him. And she did. She called Hector over and had my two favorite Orderlies deal with them since Isaac was already there. As she put it, 'they have more experience handling Mental Patients than the Police do.'"

Dr. Greeley said, "You mean this happened when DQ as you call him attacked that Man?"

Trevor nodded. "I kind of got in the way, hence the shiner. It's an occupational hazard of working in a bar! I just let everyone think the blows had knocked me unconscious and fell to the floor. That's what I will always do when Mortals start fighting me instead of creaming them which I could, Sir. My Father is the god of war and he taught me well. But by letting my opponent get in the first blow and then playing Possum I don't have to fight back and risk being locked up here again, or Claire losing her license. And I don't look like a Coward either, just a poor fighter."

Dr. Greeley let out a long sigh of relief.

Suddenly Trevor's phone rang. He checked the screen and his face lit up with obviously sincere joy. He answered it and said, "Dr, Leo! This is wonderful! I am in the scary presence of Dr. Greeley and your call demonstrates the possible and potential good intentions of Creation. My love tank is filling back up again!" (Said like Bugs Bunny) "What's up, Doc?"

Voice on the speaker phone: *I want to discuss with you the order for the stories in our new edition of 'Trekiverse Forever!' Should we put the one where Captain Kirk dies in the arms of his latest Beloved first or put the one where they finally rescue the 7 Castaways first?*

Trevor said calmly, "Let's put 'Encounter with a Small Island' last. I say we end the zine on an upbeat note. Its more likely to make the Readers want more next time when we finally get around to putting out another issue."

"Good point."

Dr. Greeley's eyes were raised as high as Mr. Spock's.

Trevor glanced at him and said, "This is Dr. Leo on the phone. He's a Shrink too, except he's like Mr. Rogers. He likes me just as I am! He's acting President of Starship New York, my Star Trek club and I'm acting secretary. I say 'acting' because we keep forgetting to hold elections. We are having too much fun to bother!"

Suddenly Claire came up the hall. She saw Trevor and came to a stop in front of them, obviously wanting a word with him about something. It could have been about DQ, his so called 'Psychosis,' or her desires for lunch though he always knew what she wanted anyway. With her it was hard to tell what she wanted to talk about. He had never been Cassandra.

Trevor's face lit up again at the sight of her. "Claire Bear! This is either my worst nightmare or my wildest dream! I have the attention of all three of my Shrinks at the same time." Mischievously he joked, " Ah OH! I don't know if my god-hood can survive all this!"

Voice on the speaker phone. *Don't let that pair annoy ya. But come on Mr. Pierce you can do better than that! Surely that can't be your wildest dream!*

Trevor's eyes grew mischievous. "No you are correct sir. My wildest dream would involve 5 Nymphs, 4 temple Virgins and Deanna Troy naked in a hot tub!"

*Throw in Roxanna Troy and a peperoni pizza and I shall join you in that hot tub.*

Trevor stared at the cell phone, "You want to date Roxanna?"

*Ooh yeah! Absolutely! She's interesting!*

Trevor gestured with his phone at a blank patch of space to the right of Dr. Greeley "You know I was saying the exact same thing to Harvey here..."

(Sounding like a normal Shrink trying to pop a Patient's delusion) *Mr. Pierce try to face reality! You can't have a six foot, three and a half inch tall White Rabbit following you around... because I have Harvey here with me!*

(Said like broken hearted little Kid) "You can't! I have Harvey!

*No you don't! I do!*

"I do!"

*No! I do!*

Trevor said in a serious sounding voice "Dr L we we may have a serious problem here! One of them may be the evil Harvey from the Mirror Mirror Universe and how are we going to tell the difference?"

*Egads Commander! You are correct. Let us think! The fate of the Galaxy depends on it!*

Trevor's face brightened, "I know! Since good always triumphs over evil we could get them to mud wrestle out in the parking lot. The good Harvey will win!"

*But Mr. Pierce the parking lot is berifit of mud! What ever can we do?*

(In a British voice). "Elementary my good Doctor. Imaginary Rabbits! Imaginary mud!"

*Gazooks good man! You have saved the Galaxy again! How do you keep doing it?*

(In a Charley Chan voice). "Ah, Grasshopper you shall learn!"

*And how can we ever thank you?*

Trevor grinned lustfully, "Buy me a red sports car and get me a date with Deanna Troy!

*Oh kay! But only if we double date with Roxanna!*

Trevor's call waiting beeped. He looked at it and frowned. He said in his perfectly normal voice, "Doc my Boss is calling. Gotta take it. Would you please hang on?"

*Certainly, Trevor.*

Trevor pushed the button and heard Felix say, *I'm sorry to cut in your time with DQ but Lita just got a sudden audition so we need you back over here.*

Trevor said cheerfully, "Oh no sweat Boss. I'm not with DQ anyway. I'm in the middle of a major, impromptu head shrinking session with Dr. Greeley and Claire both at the same time and do I EVER want to be rescued! Talk about a paradox! I'm headed to dear, home sweet home now and this time I don't mean Olympus. Let's keep our fingers crossed this is Lita's big break. She is a lot nicer to me and less nervous in general when she's got a gig!"

*You've got that right but I thought you pointed out that crossing your fingers was evoking the cross and a form of prayer to Christ?*

"Well like you said I'm 'calling for enforcements.' Because just as one Mortal can ask or help from another Mortal, one god can ask for help from another God and Lita needs all the help she can get! I'll be right over."

He switched the phone back over to Dr Leo, turned to Dr. Greeley and Claire and said "This psychiatric interrogation has been therapeutic, not. But I have to tend to Reality Space for a while! Spanish Knights and even worse delusions about curing me of being Cupid will just have to wait!" He handed his cell phone to Claire "Here the three of you can go out in the parking lot and mud wrestle over me like Harvey and his evil twin while I go medicate my own set of Clients!"

Trevor reached in his pocket, grabbed his swipe card, held it over his head like a a riding crop and ran off towards the exit yelling, "charge!"

Claire spoke into the phone. "Dr. Leo why do you always encourage him instead of discouraging him?"

Voice on the phone: *Claire two thirds of his problem is boredom not buried trauma. He needs more socially constructive outlets for his high Creativity Quotient than constant confabulating about Olympus. He needs that just as desperately as some Patients need to discuss their horrendous past. I'm providing a safe place to use that wonderful, wild, amazingly precious imagination of his! In some ways he's right. He is colorful not crazy just like he insists. I help him get it out of his system for a time. Doesn't he act more normal for a least a few minutes after talking to me?*

Claire admitted, "Well now that you mention it...at least sometimes. But you are as bad as he is!"

*True. I have the same problem. We help each other.*

Claire hung up the phone and turned to Dr. Greeley, "I don't know why he doesn't use his time with you to prove he can function perfectly normally. But I swear I've seen him do it lots of times!"

Dr Greeley shrugged. "I don't completely know what to make of what I just saw and heard but you are right about one thing. To quote you, "Even within the throes of a delusion Trevor is capable of discerning between fantasy and reality in day to day life. Such a marked sense of fun is virtually unheard of in other cases of Delusion.' He's amazing! He fits no known psychiatric profile and Dr Leo may be at least partially right about him also! He also seems to have found a kindred spirit with Dr Leo. Did you notice during that entire conversation with him there wasn't one Olympian reference! It wasn't reality but it wasn't Olympian either and that's the longest I've heard him stay off that subject!"

Claire said, "Well I've heard him stay off that subject for hours at a time because out in the real world one's point of origin and family history don't always come up and he does know how to be coy about it. (When he wants to be). Maybe it's the nature of what we do that his delusions pop up in his conversations with us so often. We actually train the Patients to bring up family history and childhood memories so Trevor is just doing with us what we trained him to do. Plus he knows he can talk to us about it without us completely rejecting us. He likes Therapists, Milton! Maybe to his detriment. But he loves the attention we give him. Remember he was in that car accident while I was visiting my Sisters? He said something that gained him psychiatric attention in the regular hospital within a few hours of his being there. I know he knew better but I was gone for a few days and that was too long I guess without being the center of psychiatric attention. That's when he met Dr Leo and they've been good friends ever since. So I guess he won that one. A less simpatico Doctor and I might have returned from my vacation to find him committed again. He's have hated that but it would have been his own fault! I am quite sure he took the risk just to get the attention!"

Dr. Greeley said, "Now that's interesting. I always thought he was a bit paranoid."

Claire shook his head, "No, Milton he's not! At least not with Doctors who don't threaten to lock him up again and/or put him on potentially dangerous experimental drugs like you and Dr. Freschette almost did."

"Well I've learned something. I admit I did!"

Claire nodded. "Then this little impromptu hallway meeting of the minds about Trevor is a breakthrough of sorts. We compared notes and now you understand him a little better! Milton I'm taking a lunch break and you know where. I just have to get some mole sauce! See you later."

As she was getting off the elevator she realized Dr Leo was still connected when a disembodied voice spoke out of her purse. *Hello! You still there?*

Laughing she fished out the phone and said, "Oh my! You startled me! Trevor said his phone had a disconnect problem but what with him trying to help me with this other Patient who thinks he's Don Quixote he hasn't had time to do anything about it. For a few seconds there I understood completely what Schizophrenics have to put up with!"

Voice on phone: *I know! Cell phone Schizophrenia is a serious disorder and our civilization has an incurable epidemic. I think our only hope is adaptation. Cars and other machines will have to learn to run themselves while their Creators sit and stand around glassy eyed, no longer in touch with anything but their disembodied cellular voices and the electronic-spirit-haunted Cyberworld.*

Claire was exasperated. "You sound as bad as some of my Patients!"

Dr Leo laughed, *But I dress better and I have fancy degrees! But I understand Patients really well and I love Trevor because he is one of the few who can understand me! But what he comprehends is beyond even me. We can't begin to get but the tiniest grasp of his inward, mental Universe or the speed at which it functions. But I do know this. It isn't a sick place like a Schizophrenic's nightmare. It is warm and charming. It comforts him. We don't need to save Trevor from his madness to keep him from suffering. He isn't suffering except from having no one to share it with. So we should pull up a comfortable chair once in a while and just sit a spell and visit him and his world and admire it as the work of art it truly is. That helps him more than anything else we could do for him and it would help us too. I know it does me! And one thing has occurred to me about Trevor I suspect the rest of you may be missing. Trevor didn't become a god because he needed to feel superior to everyone. With his aptitudes soaring off the charts he already is superior to everyone. He became a god because he desperately needed to know there were others just like him in existence and even superior to him. That's why he picked Cupid not Zeus. This isn't self-induced megalomania to repress conscious awareness of an inferiority complex, just the opposite. It only looks like megalomania at first. Because if 'the gods' weren't there he'd be all alone in the Universe, no family, no 'species' and no hope of ever finding any. And that would drive anyone to madness, Claire! Think of the aloneness this man has too put up with every day! Even in his deluded state which helps him cope, how does he stand it? At least what he picked to cope is harmless. Unless we can offer him a real alternative to being the only one of his own kind on all the Earth let's have the wisdom not to work so hard to cure him of his Cupid delusion. Because being certain he is not alone is keeping him sane Claire! That's why he can still function. So unless we can come up with a better defense for him...*

Claire was a bit irritated. "If I didn't have my Boss and the hospital board breathing down my neck and demanding some kind of a breakthrough I'd almost agree with you! I would at least slack off quite a bit in my pressuring him to come back to reality. But I do have them breathing down my neck and its taking all my efforts to get them to allow him to remain living wild and free like he craves! That's reality space, Dr. Leo! I'm not off helping him run fictional starships to make him feel better. I'm trying to keep him on his side of the street not our side!"

She added, "I'm taking the battery out of this phone now to disconnect this phone. Too bad we can't cure other kinds of Schizophrenia as easily!"

She had the phone in pieces when the the Pedestrian light came on. Then Claire crossed the street, away from the mental hospital and into the magical, loving world of Trevor Pierce.

Tres Equis was busy at lunch time as usual. As usual Trevor ran around the bar doing the work of at least two normal Employes and doing it with efficiency, patience and cheerfulness. He was busy mixing and serving drinks, being cheerful to the Customers, greeting all the Regulars by name and also keeping a close eye on the cash register when its Attendant had to go for a bathroom break. He didn't have time to be a lesser god now. He was too busy being a superior Barkeep. So for a few precious minutes reality was enough to keep him occupied. Claire frowned thoughtfully. It was such a shame she couldn't get the entire hospital board over here at lunch time! It was the sort of situation she had been making reference to with Milton. Trevor incompetent? Ha! Trevor could be hyper-competent when he needed to be.

But of course on their own at one time or another various staff members had been across the street and noticed this. It was just a darn shame Dr Greeley and Dr. Freschette and others on the board just didn't care for bars or Mexican food! The Orderlies knew. Most of the Nurses knew. The Janitors even knew. It seemed the Folk that needed to know the state of Trevor's functionality the most just happened to be the ones least likely to put themselves in position to know the truth!

Trevor greeted her with the same cheery smile he gave the other Customers, reached under the counter and pulled out her already completed order, set it on the counter and kept right on working. Long ago she had given up trying to figure out how he knew ahead of time if she was coming that day, or not. Or did he just throw away the food on the days she didn't come? But that didn't explain how he always knew what dish it was she was going to choose. Or did he? Could it possibly be the other way around? Was he somehow influencing her choices?

But it always contained lots of mole sauce. As far as she could tell it was at least her free will choosing that!

It was always at the back of her mind: What if he was who he said he was? But that was impossible! It meant everything she had learned in school was wrong! Everybody in the entire World was wrong and the laws of the Universe were not as they had been soundly thought out to be and only one supposedly demented Barkeep living in Queens had The Truth; that the gods were real and there were other realms!

But quantum physics said there were other parallel universes and time lines. Was Trevor or what possessed him from one of those? Was Olympus more than a mountain in Thessaly, Greece? Did it contain a gateway to another Universe, a 'stargate' of some sort that Trevor's people passed through on a daily basis, without perhaps even understanding it, convinced they were gods? Or did they know the truth and they chose not to reveal it to mere 'Mortals? Well if that were so they would not keep up their facade much longer! Needs changing

Science was on the move like a pride of hungry Lions on the hunt. "The god busters" were coming and Trevor's powerful but dysfunctional people, (if they were real) were soon going to get a reckoning with!

Trevor had told her too much! If they were real she wasn't in awe of them. She felt sorry for them. Their time was almost over! Trevor had told her of the coming "Human Singularity" Immortality was an evolutionary dead end, a trap! The future belonged to the quicker reproducing, faster evolving Mortal race!

Claire had been amazed at this idea! We, not them evolve into the Omega Point! 'The gods' were only useless curiousitys, bewildered, living, feeling, slowly moving flotsam and jetsom rapidly left behind in the dizzy, maddening tidal wave towards progress! They could not keep up!

Where did Trevor go?

The next night Trevor went missing!The Gentle Delusional did not answer his cell phone. Soon Claire was worried sick!

Felix and Lita had no idea where he was. Neither did anyone in his improv group. His Star Trek club and its extremely laid back leader Dr Benjamin Leo who tended to let Trevor be what he wanted to be instead of trying to bring him back to reality had no idea but wasn't worried.

But Claire was frantic! Should I or should I not dial 911? She thought. If he's in trouble and I don't, it might be the worst decision of my life! His disappearance may not even be related to his illness! Crimes do happen to normal People! But if I do call and his disappearance turns out to be due to his illness but he would have come back on his own if I'd just held off a while longer, Dr Greeley and Dr Freschette will use that as an excuse to have him recommitted!

She gazed up at the ceiling praying "to Whom it Might Concern. It isn't easy being a Therapist with a delusional Patient with such a strong desire and ability to be allowed to live wild and free! Life in a secure facility would be so much safer! But his soul would die!

She only had one clue and it was an ominous one.

He had left a note taped to the door of his room, "Don't worry about me." Claire groaned. "Now what is that supposed to mean!"

Felix suggested, "That we aren't to worry about him?"

Claire said, "Felix, I've seen suicide notes that said exactly same thing!"

Felix exclaimed, "Trevor suicidal? You are a trained Psychiatrist and a Therapist and you think that? Oh I know he's been troubled by Don Quixote and Susan's situation but he isn't going to kill himself! Just the opposite. He knows he needs to stay alive to help them!"

Claire frowned and shook her head, "Fatal decisions can be made on the spur of the moment. Remember there is a strong chance he is a Multiple Personality though we call it Disassociative Identity Disorder today. 'Cupid' may want to live but the original Personality must be full of self hatred or why would it do a disappearing act and turn their mutual body completely over to a self-made god? That one could still surface and who knows what its mental state and moods are after all this time?"

Felix protested, "But Claire its been five years at least! He was Cupid or Eros when I first met him. There has never been a single peep out of whoever had the body first!"

Claire said in an extremely worried tone of voice, "Felix in some cases the longer the Primary Host stays hidden the more likely it is to surface! By now one would think it would want to take a peek at what is going on and it might not like what it finds! Trevor a Bartender? With that that mighty brain of his! Forgive me for saying it since you are a Bartender too. But Trevor is a Genius with an IQ higher than Einstein's and a Creativity Quotient off the charts too! Bar tending is mental slacking for him! He could have done so much better!"

Felix frowned. He had not considered that!

Claire called Josie and canceled all her other counseling sessions. She even canceled her own annual medical checkup. There was no way she could concentrate on anything but missing Trevor. Her other Patients and her own body deserved her full attention!

It was high noon before her delinquent Delusional answered his phone! By then Claire was about ready to kill him herself!

She was shouting in a very unprofessional manner but she was past caring! "TREVOR WHERE ARE YOU? ARE YOU OK? YOUR BED WASN'T SLEPT IN LAST NIGHT WHICH IS VERY UNLIKE YOU BECAUSE I KNOW YOU REFUSE TO SLEEP WITH ANYONE UNTIL YOU HAVE YOUR HUNDREDTH COUPLE. YOU DIDN'T SHOW UP AT THE CONVENIENCE STORE OR HERE FOR BREAKFAST. PLUS YOU HAVEN'T ANSWERED YOUR CELL PHONE FOR HOURS! WE'VE BEEN WORRIED SICK!" Then a little bit calmer she said. "Remember I need to know where you are since I'm in charge of keeping you out of trouble!"

Trevor protested, *I left a note!*

Claire was exasperated! "Trevor all it said was, 'Don't worry about me.' That only made me worry more!"

*Why Claire? Why did it not just make you not worry about me like it said to do?*

Claire sighed, "Trevor are you OK and where are you?"

The thankfully, cheerful voice on the other end said, *I'm fine. "I'm sorry I forgot to fill out a more detailed Cupid's flight plan but if you must know I'm on the roof of Tres Equis.*

Lita was horrified! Claire and Felix exchanged worried glances. Claire asked, "Trevor as your Therapist I have to ask! You aren't planning on jumping off, are you?"

Trevor's voice was gently scolding. *Now Claire Bear you ought to know me better than that! Have I been depressed or confused? Suspecting I am suicidal just because I have a so called mental condition makes no more sense than suspecting out of the blue a Diabetic has lupus just because both are physical ailments. Also jumping off a roof would be a very painful way to die. That splat at the end really hurts! Remember from omnipresent viewpoint I've seen and heard the reports of those who have tried that kind of undignified, embarrassing entrance into the Afterlife. It HURTS Claire Bear. Impact with the concrete hurts like you wouldn't believe! You can't comprehend! And you know how I feel about pain! And as for killing one's self, well let's just say there are unpleasant consequences. All kinds of murder do. So if I were depressed I'd just get help. I know the pills work if Patients get the right kind for them and stick with them long enough. I saw that from non-omnipresent viewpoint as just another Mental Patient!*

Claire smiled in deep relief! She started breathing normally again. "Well I had to ask. Because while the chances are even more diddly squat than your average, so called 'Normal' of you doing anything self-harmful, if I hadn't asked it would have made me look like a poor Therapist."

*If it will make you feel better I am right smack dab in the center of the roof sitting in a lotus position, as far from the edges as I can possibly get and that's how I like it!*

Claire smiled and asked with clinical interest. "Are you afraid of heights Trevor?"

*Well, a little I suppose, but hardly to the point it's a pathological fear. After all NOW I can't fly. But my real reason for staying far far away from the edges is here in the middle I can't be seen from the street. Heights aren't my biggest concern. I am more afraid of someone seeing the friendly neighborhood "Mental Patient" up here and calling 911 and the next thing I know the street is full of fire trucks and ambulances and Paramedics and a Cop with a bullhorn begging me to reconsider jumping which I have no plans to do but they probably would not believe me and I find myself taking a strapped down ride across the street with psychiatric interrogations about my moods and life history again for hours and hours and no one ever lets me out again!*

Claire sighed, "I regret that's a realistic fear. I am doing what I can to keep you from being recommitted but you don't make it easy sometimes. Helping DQ might help that along. OK. But why didn't you answer your cell phone?"

Trevor yawned. Then he said, *I had it turned off. It's my day off. I don't have to be any where at any particular time. If you must know I'm up here praying to my family for DQ and for Susan. And for myself, you, Feliz, Lita and your Mother too while I am at it.*

Claire shrieked, "AND YOU HAD TO SCARE EVERYBODY SILLY AND GO TO THE ROOF WITH YOUR CELL PHONE SHUT OFF TO DO THAT?"

*Relax Claire Bear! What about using some of those relaxation exercises you taught me? Because Shisk! I am a grown god not a widdle, godling still in swaddling clothes! I haven't been around the whole wheel of time as the older gods have but I'm no spring Chicken!*

Claire was exasperated! "I repeat, you had to scare us silly just to pray? I've seen you pray on the subway and quite loudly too! Supposedly we sophisticated City Folks are all skeptics but an amazing number of New Yorkers are even willing to pray with you until they realize you are praying to Zeus!"

Claire Bear a lot of them still pray with me to good old Hey Zeus."

"I know!" Claire grimaced. "It's scary! Watching you effortlessly get a crowd in the palm of your hands and work them into any kind of a frenzy you desire makes me understand exactly how Hitler and Jim Jones did it! It's a darn good thing you deliberately chose to be harmless!'

Trevor smiled, *A good thing I know I'm love incarnate and 'love bears all things' etc etc etc? You still think its a good idea to 'cure me?' Under just slightly different circumstances an Avatar, or a Mortal who thinks he is one can be very dangerous Claire! You know the only thing that stops me from taking over? (And I you KNOW I could do it)! I can't think of any way to improve on what America already has!*

Claire sighed. Megalomania or just the truth?

*And since I am living in America and am officially diagnosed as harmless I certainly have the right to practice my religious beliefs even if you current Mortals have forgotten the sacred, old ways. And down through the ages Mortals seem to feel the need to get up high and alone with their gods.*

He added,* For thousands of years you Mortals have gotten as high as you could when you wanted to really, really, really pray. Being higher up seems to help you Mortals focus on the task. We gods don't actually care. We are omnipresent so one location for a Mortal petitioning us is as good as any other. The toilet will work just fine. But I figured since I am in Mortal mode now I'd give it a try. And I sensed something! My family communicated with me somehow in a way you cannot possibly understand or believe, so I guess high locations do help. Oh it wasn't voices like Schizophrenics hear, or like what I used to have before the psychic veil/mental force field was placed over my eyes as it is with other Mortals, when my family cast me out. But it was very real to me! So please don't be ripping into me about it! It was a soothing result for me and you ought to have the sense to leave it at that!*

Claire sighed, "It is hard sometimes to tell where your pathology stops and normal religious feelings and behavior take over. You are right! Over the millennial billions of perfectly normal Folks have gone to high, secluded locations to pray and came back feeling they had real answers. OK. I won't even bring it up again. But next time leave me a more detailed note! I promise if you go up there again for the same purpose and I am merely kept in the loop about your whereabouts I will leave you alone! It's not like I ever marched into churches and interrupted Easter services for my other Patients and I guess you deserve just as much respect for most of your beliefs as any one else. Except Trevor." Claire sighed. "Most Folks don't think they are one of their own higher powers!"

Claire could hear the pleased surprise in Trevor's voice. *Thanks Dr Clare McCrae! Sometimes you surprise me with you own level of insight! And it did seem to help.* Trevor yawned. *I stayed up all night so I am very sleep deprived but I feel very much at peace about both of them, Claire Bear! They are both going to find what they are looking for and it's closer than we think! I just know it!*

Cupid Argues for Don Quixote's Freedom

Rather it is a small World or not, depends on your point of view. From God, gods, Angels, Astronauts, Cosmonauts and Alien's point of view Earth is a pale blue dot. From a starship Captain's point of view (and there will be many someday) Earth is too small to be seen. But if you are stranded along a desolate road, out of gas, or your car died and your cell phone is dead or you used prepaid and have no minutes or you can't afford a cell phone at all and the nearest service station or place to get help is out of sight over the horizon, suddenly Planet Earth is back to being very very big again.

But one thing was always true for any Human all the time Sachs-Gordon was a very small hospital. Being confined to it for Life would not be fun!

Ninety percent of it was devoted to treating the Mentally Ill. It did have an emergency room and an ICU that would take anybody. Which is why Trevor's boss had spent some time there after his heart attack. It also had a small section devoted to treating the physical needs of Patients whose primary reason for admittance had been supposedly mental though about eighty percent of all so called Mental Illness had biological roots or at least biological components. Emotional stress can physically damage the brain. Brain scans can be used to diagnose Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and even Trevor's supposed diagnosis, Dissociative Identity Disorder (once known as Multiple Personality disorder) which was treatable only with therapy, hypnosis and occasionally sodium Pentothal seems to be heredity. Rare as it supposedly is is it is not unusual for the Grandparents of current Patients to have had all the symptoms of there having been more than one Person at home in their body.

(But maybe what was inherited was a talent for being a good Host for elemental spirits at least in some cases!)-

Even Mental Patients can have kidney problems, heart conditions, migraines, pregnancies, etc. Many of the Staff chose to have their Babies at their work place. It was convenient. They had an Employee discount.

So Sachs-Gordon was a real hospital not just a "Lunatic Asylum." In any which case the goal was to cure Patients as quickly as possible or arrange their transfer to a half way house or other secure facility, not give them an asylum away from the cruel world for Life as much as at least some Patients would have liked that! The problem was there were not anywhere near enough of half way houses or other mental hospitals happy to take a 'dumped Patient" which is why much of the emphasis was on getting Patients out on the street one way or another even if they left in less than a Normal mental state. So as much as Dr Greeley would have loved to keep Trevor and other harmless Patients locked up indefinitely 'just in case' the reality was, for better or worse there just wasn't room for them! So even a few Schizophrenics had been released on rare occasions even while still hallucinating if their hallucinations had seemed harmless enough. Tres Equis's dishwasher, Jerry was one like that. He was always carrying on two way combinations with the bar's plumbing system but it didn't matter. He knew how to use his shiny metal friends to wash the dishes much more sparkling clean and with more consistency than any other dishwasher Felix had ever hired. The bane of restaurant Managers "klingons" became a thing of the past! Which is why Jerry was still at it after 20 years. Jerry wasn't a fly by night washer of pots and pans! He was a Professional with an amazing work ethic! He even arrived for work 2001 9/11 and washed the glasses of all the Customers who had come there in shock having no where else to go. The Cook hadn't even showed up. The only reason Felix and Lita had was they lived there and owned the place!

No one was hungry anyway. It was just no one wanted to be alone! Felix had never been asked to lead his Customers in prayer before! Thanks to a devout Grandmother who had taught him the basics Felix had managed to do so.

Sometimes bars do the work of Churches and Temples even when they don't house fallen Greco-Roman love gods. People are lonely 24/7 but most Churches alas haven't the sense to stay open all the time and serve food. Or provide harmless games. If Churches ran bars instead of fighting them, providing alcohol but not pushing it as commercial bars do, drunkenness could be reduced and so would loneliness. Temperance originally meant moderation not abstinence.

But even if Schizophrenic Jerry managed just fine living wild and free outside of a mental hospital and had indeed just as Trevor had, been confined for only ninety days his entire life due to religious taking of his meds and fairly harmless hallucinations anyway even when they failed. And even though Trevor definitely was no candidate for ever needing Sachs-Gordon's "hospitality" again despite no cure for his "delusion' even being seen in the far distant horizon, things did not look too rosy for 'the Ingenious Hidalgo Don Quixote of La Mancha' ever getting out again!

Trevor argued for the right and ability of his friend to live wild and free anyway!

Claire was far from convinced. "Trevor he thinks we have him in a dungeon and that the Minions of Wizards are forcing potions on him!

Trevor stared in amazement at Claire's lack of understanding "And this isn't true?"

Claire sighed. "Trevor even you aren't that out of touch with reality!"

Trevor frowned. "No. I'm not! Instead I'm the only one who is completely in touch with reality concerning this. Because I'm old enough to understand what he really means and 'with it' enough to understand what modern Mortals are thinking he means. I realize nether of you understand the other. He's not as bad as you are thinking. It is mostly merely culture confusion. You don't really understand what he means when he uses the terms he uses. Claire why isn't the D Wing a dungeon? It smells almost like some of the better kept dungeons. I'm sorry but it does! Oh your modern dungeon smells like Lysol but believe me that only slightly hides the original smells which are still very much there. You are confining People in it. You have some People strapped down. There is screaming and hollering and cursing and praying and begging to be allowed to go free and other People are singing trying to comfort themselves. You think all that didn't go in ancient dungeons? And you are torturing some of them for their own good. And once in a while Attendants bring them food. Oh! I know! The walls are panted and the beds have mattresses. Oh whoop di do that's such an improvement! I guess the fact the walls are painted and the beds have mattresses means it's not a dungeon. My mistake. Sorry!"

Claire sighed again, "Trevor we don't torture People here!"

Trevor frowned. "And ECT isn't torture?"

Claire said firmly, "No Trevor. It isn't. It doesn't even hurt. Oh there is a slight headache after it is over and some memory loss but compared with the good it does, most of the time it's worth it. We have volunteer Outpatients who tell us going to the Dentist is worse. We use anesthesia and muscle relaxants so no one jerks around any more like Jack Nickleson. But even without the anesthesia and muscle relaxants it never hurt because the electricity knocked them unconscious in less than a tenth of a second. The healing seizure that caused just looked bad. Now they have to cope with the IV insertion which is just as painful but no more so than any other vein puncture. But even these days the Patients don't feel anything but that IV going in their arm and that puts them under in less than a second. They come out from the anesthesia in just a few seconds with a headache that some Patients say actually 'hurts so good' and they want to sleep and we let them and that is that. They wake up feeling much better. For some of them it's the first good sleep they've had in months or years and depression starts to lift and mania starts to calm down and sometimes terrifying hallucinations and paranoia ends or at least they are lessened. It is a treatment of last resort because of the memory loss and the stigma. So we try everything else first and we do have many other treatments that work for most. But for the ones who end up needing it, it does help very much and it's for their own good!"

Trevor nodded, "Alright Dr. Claire McCrae. There is where my analogy breaks down but just barely! Because to many of the Folks in that 'dungeon' knowing they are going to get ECT at least for the first time is just as horrifying as knowing one is headed towards The Rack. The green mile down the hall to the ECT treatment room is just as stomach twisting, palm sweaty, heart-in-the-throat-horrible! And I know it's hard for modern Mortals to conceive of it but many of the People tortured in the past were being given that 'treatment' for their 'own good.' It was to save them from the horrible insanity of blasphemy and hearsay, a 'madness' that would 'cost them their immortal souls.' The Administrators of that 'treatment' didn't see themselves as monsters. They saw themselves as Performers of a painful medical procedure whose goal was to sane-up the Patient. Almost ALL medical procedures were agonizingly painful back then. It has only improved slightly. Go tell most any contemporary Child headed for the Doctor's he or she isn't headed for a torturer and you will get vehemently told the truth! And their pain and terror isn't necessary either. You have Ethyl chloride and Lidocaine and Numby stuff. Those are things that the medical establishment could have been doing for decades to make shots and needle sticks not hurt but they aren't doing them. Nope! Can't be bothered! The Children's screams of agony and begging for mercy and copious tears means nothing to them because so called modern "compassionate" Doctors and Nurses get hardened to their little Patients very real pain and terror in exactly the same way the third time some poor Beggar is lashed with a whip to force him to repent from the madness of hearsay it no longer gives the Lasher nightmares. 'It's for their own good.'

"As for minions. Minions means Servants. As for Wizards. What did Wizards do, Claire Bear? Did they really stand on top of mountains and direct the Universe like Mickey Mouse?" Trevor shook his head. "Nope. They experimented with chemicals and plant extracts and minerals mixing them, experimenting long into the night like modern computer Geeks, trying to find combinations that would do useful things and they tried to make People well or at least feel better. They were Scientists and Doctors! And they succeeded amazingly well quite often. I would still rather be in the presence of many a Wizard I knew taking their advice and potions or even having them forced on me than under the care of many of the Shrinks here!"

Claire nodded thoughtfully, "But calling the Disturbed ward, 'a dungeon" and calling Nurses and Orderlies minions and calling the Doctors 'Wizards'' makes him sound quite mad Trevor!" Her face softened, "It's like I wish so very much I could get you to quit calling us 'Mortals.' That gets you so many funny looks!"

"But it is true! You are Mortals."

"But that's not the modern term. Humans would sound saner, though 'you Humans' sounds just about as demented."

"But I'm Human too, Claire Bear! I'm just not Mortal. Calling you, 'you Humans' as if I were not one would be the height of arrogance. That really would be megalomania! We gods are Humans 2.0, the improved model though I do think there has got to be Humans 3.0 coming in a trip or two around Time again. We still have a lot to be desired and in some ways I think we are Windows Vista compared with good old dependable Windows XP. We're too fancy and too temperamental and more design flaws were written in than were written out!

"Plus Claire listen to how it sounds; 'hooooo man.' Yes, we are Primates. But do I have to remind you of that fact every time I refer to you? To me you are not merely Monkeys with options. You are MORTALS! Wonderful, wonderful Mortals who do not realize just how wonderful you are! You think we gods are mad at you or laughing at you...or something. Instead we are in awe of you! We bow down to you! We are obsessed with pleasing you because you are our Ancestors and you hardwired us to be this way. You worship us but what we do and think and feel about you is beyond worship! There is no word for it in Mortal speak! Only a god can understand another gods dept of feelings about you! Die on the cross for you? Why we do more than that in our more noble moments! We voluntarily live for you which is a lot harder than being forced to die for you! We'd breath for you! We would fling all our children to the Lions if it would save just one of you a few more precious minutes! We can't help it! We are as I said deliberately programmed and hardwired to be that way but we aren't fighting it because you Mortals are what gives us meaning. Without you that nonstop party on Mount Olympus would come to a screeching halt. There would be nothing to party about!"

Claire's eyes filled with tears. "Oh Trevor whatever am I going to do with you? To sane you up would be to destroy a work of art and yet I don't know if I can hold off the hospital board much longer! Can't you at least tone it down a little? Do a better job of staying in Clark Kent mode, 'pull a Cupid' in day to day life instead of just that one time to get out of the hospital?"

Trevor stared at her, thoughtfully.

She continued, "You and I can still know you know you are Cupid but it can be our little secret."

"I am not going to lie!"

"Well don't lie. Just don't talk about it, at least not as much. It hurts me to say this. Because I admit it's like putting a curtain over a work of art. Trying to understand your point of view that you are beyond us allows me to so to speak step outside myself and my species and get a fresh look at us and that gives me insight that compliments and in some cases completes what I learned in school. And its wonderful and its exciting and its fresh and its new and it makes me see the world with brighter colors and smell and hear it again like a Toddler! But for your sake, for your safety it must be done!"

Trevor nodded "OK. Because I love you and do see you have a point I will at least consider toning it down a little at least with Strangers. But it brings in the Customers, Claire Bear!"

Claire stared at him amazed. Then she nodded and said, "Now that's a point. I'll point out to Dr. Greeley you said that. It demonstrates some of your motives for behaving off the wall may be financial, which is normal! More Customers means more tips and more chance the bar stays open and you don't lose your job and your room. It's not any different than the 'our prices are so low we've gone insane' car and furniture commercials."

He grinned, "Except I believe what I am saying and I'm definitely not insane."

She sighed, "Yes. Both are true. Poor thing!"

Trevor said thoughtfully, "You've give me an idea for another You Tube video. Compassionate god of love has pity on Mortals for the high cost of drinks and managed to persuade Boss to lower them for a few days. If I really can persuade Felix to lower them for a few days that would work. And again it wouldn't even be a lie! My productions work on two levels. They are great theater, great camp, but unlike those shyster Car salesmen I mean what I say in them and my sincerity shines through he camp!"

Claire smiled, "Don't be so sure they don't mean theirs too Trevor. The only difference between them and you is you have an official psychiatric diagnosis."

Trevor gave her a wry grin, "Nope! When it comes to being crazy they are rank Amateurs. I am a Professional. 'Don't try this at home folks!' Because I am just going to sit there with my hair carefully combed, as neatly but casually dressed as I always am and make my proclamation of craziness calmly and quietly. It will confuse the hell out of the Mortals, oops I mean the Customers! Who were expecting Hollywood craziness not my usual, perfectly normal behavior. But they'll come to the bar just to see what I'm all about!"

He said mischievously, "I'll sneak Felix's camera out of his camera bag and you run it and I'll act. We'll produce it before I talk to him about lowering drinks for a few days then show it to him. He'll be hooked! I can even add my very real Shrink is my camera lady!"

Claire nodded resigned to her fate. "OK. I will help you because it will help prove my point with Dr Greeley about you and even as you just pointed out your little productions help show the world the reality of mental illness, that its victims aren't all Hollywood, stereotypical weirdos who can't function or be of any use to society or who are very dangerous. You are indeed kind of weird but you are extremely functional and useful to society and you are the kindest, most harmless person I know and that is by choice not because of helplessness. But don't you dare mention my name in it, Trevor! Such shenanigans may help your career but it would seriously harm mine! It would look like the worst kind of advertising for me or that I approved of your illness! I'm supposed to be trying to cure you!"

Trevor's eyes twinkled. "Yes, even though you have mixed feelings about it. The thing is, you do help me. It's just not in ways that look good to grumpy, Grinchey Greeley!"

She laughed. "Mundane Milton, 'muddled Milton,' 'make it my way or else Milton!' Lets quit before we are overheard!

Trevor than said, "Then back to our original subject; DQ. Let him out as soon as possible, Claire Bear! I can help him!"

Claire blinked, "You?

Trevor said firmly, "Yes. I can. You know I can. I think you know how!"

Claire stared at him, "You could persuade him to try and solve his interpersonal conflicts without violence?"

Trevor nodded. "I can try. And I can teach him how to live long and prosper in this modern Mortalberg, whoops I mean Citadel," whoops I mean 'Big Apple.' That last one makes no sense at all. We are not living in a huge, nontropical fruit but that's the normal term! I have a better chance of it than anyone. He thinks I'm his Sancho Panza. I can use that. After all I think you are my Psyche and look how that has me in the palm of your therapeutic hands." Trevor smiled and winked, seeing both points of view. "I listen to you because of that!"

Psyche Argues for Don Quixote's Freedom

Claire walked into her Boss's office carrying her lap top.

Milton smiled, "I see we have your faithful, computer companion with you today, Claire!"

She nodded, "Yes. And Tonto has a job to do today for us. I want you to look at a new You Tube Video Trevor just made with my help and posted just a few minutes ago. It's completely his own creation and all his own ideas and he did the uploading. It required no editing. We did it in one take. I just ran the camera."

Dr Greeley gave her a bemused grin, "Which is it this time, impossible dart throwing? Shooting arrows into one another again at the park? Pleas to ban Thorax B again? Oh! I forgot to tell you but he just won that one. The FDA just pulled our funding due to all the flack they got about it. But personally between you and me, I'm neither surprised nor displeased. I still wish Trevor were safely locked up here but we didn't really have to do that to him. Higher doses of what we already have would probably be enough to sane him up. I still think at least sometime we ought to try that. He admits himself he has a weird metabolism. eight mgs of Risperidone and one and a half mgs of Haloperidol just may not have been enough to help him. Higher doses."

Claire gasped in exasperation and interrupted, "Milton how many times do we have to go over this? He's not a Schizophrenic!"

"How can you be so sure?"

Well besides the fact he can not only define metaphors but make them up, consider his many accomplishments, any one of which he may have done though Schizophrenic but not all of them if he were fighting and facing what Schizophrenics have to fight and face. He isn't living with a Schizophrenic's incredible fear levels so his mind however delusional is calm and functional. And he has great social skills. He loves People and they love him right back. Plus Schizophrenics seldom do You Tube videos. At least not produce mini-movies all on their own with the complex plots and ideas he comes up with."

Milton smiled. "I know! He starred in a Star Trek spoof the other day. It was funny. I grant him that!" Dr Greeley laughed. "He's a Ham! If I didn't know he thinks he's Cupid I'd have swore he thought he was Captain Kirk except I don't think Captain Kirk ever had to deal with the IRS! Surely by the 23rd century improved social engineering will have eliminated the Infernal Revenue service!" Milton smiled at the thought.

Claire laughed. "He is a ham. Which is why I am showing you this video. It makes a point for me concerning why he acts the way he does."

Claire started the video.

Trevor was sitting at Felix's desk in the observation office. He was wearing a Tres Equis T shirt and his usual sunny smile. Cheerfully he told the camera. "Hi Mortals! I'm Cupid the Greco-Roman god of love cast down and powerless but still living larger than life. Or I am your friendly neighborhood, free range, mostly harmless Lunatic." His smile went mischievous. "Or possibly I am both. Take your pick. You can call me Cupid or Eros or Mucho Amore! Or you can call me Love or even Trevor Pierce. I don't call what you cute, widdle Mortals call me as long as you keep falling in love. Because LOVE Baby! That's my gig!"

He paused. Then in a sadder sounding voice and mood he continued. "The economy is very bad right now and I realize we all have to count our dollars and sometimes even our pennies. I do too. I may be a god but I'm living off a Barkeep's salary and tips, so please, purty please, tip good! The darn economy is harming me in two ways. One, as just a simple Barkeep I need you in my bar and grill, Tres Equis in Queens so my Boss keeps this place open so I don't lose my job and room and board. And two if you are sitting glassy eyed in front of your TV or your computer which you must be right now if you are seeing this video, you aren't out making new Friends and making whoopee, and that makes me a very miserable love god. I need you to make whoopee! I feed off you Mortal's feelings of love for each other like a Vampire feeds off your blood and your fear!"

Trevor leaned forward and said in a conspiratorial whisper. "So that's why I used some of my mojo on my Boss and persuaded him to lower prices for the next seven days. Come into Tres Equis Mexican Bar and Cantina in Queens between September 29 and October 5th and every first drink in the place is half off all day long. Every hour is happy hour!"

Then he smiled a loopy grin. "You may think I'm just acting, claiming I'm Cupid but I actually have an official psychiatric diagnosis of 'Psychotic Delusional' and my lovely Shrink here who says I'd better not mention her name is actually running the camera filming me right now, though it isn't really film. It's a flash card. But anyway our prices are NOT so low they are insane. I'm not diagnosed as insane or I would not be allowed to run around loose. For legal and safety reasons I'd be locked up for your protection and my own. I'm officially diagnosed as harmlessly crazy but I am positive I'm not even that! I'm colorful not crazy! And we will still profit off this offer because we both know you aren't going to buy just one drink. We have the best Mexican food in Queens if not all of New York and once you come in here and smell it you are going to be salivating! So you will buy much more than one half off drink and you'll be very happy and you'll tip all us Bar workers really good and you'll love us so much you will keep coming back and back and back. So our one reduced price drink will win us dozens of permanent new Customers which is why businesses do these sort of offers and place adds. Mental illness has nothing to do with it. This kind of offer is called a "loss leader" and businesses do this all the time. But most important hopefully this one reduced drink will lead to you coming and meeting your Special Someone here and you'll fall in LOVE and I'll be one more Couple closer to home. Because Mortals, most of you know the drill already. This probably isn't my first production you've watched. I have to match up two hundred of you in the divine bliss of True Love before I can go home to my beautiful Mountain. And I'm homesick, Mortals. I want to go hommmme." (said like ET). His eyes misted over at the thought of his beautiful home! That couldn't have been acting! "Please! Please! Please! Help this lonely, homesick god get back to Olympus! Come to Tres Equis and party with the gods!"

Trevor picked a dart off the desk and flung it backwards over his shoulder without bothering to use any kind of a reflective surface to aim. It hit the bull's eye of the dart board he had placed on the wall behind him. "Cut." he said pleasantly.

Milton shrugged, "So now he doesn't even have to look at his target in a mirror to hit it? Impressive but I'm not surprised considering this is Trevor. Even Dr Freschette considers his accuracy amazing but this demonstration that he's getting even more accurate hardly shows any progress towards normalcy. If anything it is indicative of higher than normal dopamine levels."

Claire exclaimed, "Milton that wasn't the point I'm trying to make. The point is unlike other Mental Patients Trevor has incentive to publicize his condition not hide it. He is working at a bar and doing very successful PR work for it. You know what you just saw is going to bring in bocou customers which was the point of him posting it to You Tube. So the point I'm trying to make is Trevor is more normal than he seems. He knows now we think he's crazy for thinking he's from Olympus. He knows most folks can't believe he's a god. But continually publicly stating he is brings him not only Santa Claus style love and attention which he just eats up. (In a way he does feed off our love)! But it brings in Customers to his place of business too. Which makes his Boss happy. Which helps keep his job secure. He's become Tres Equis's advertising icon. So by refusing to hide what he believes himself to be but instead practically rubbing our noses in it isn't a sign he isn't progressing. It's a sign he's so normal he likes money and a secure job and for People to recognize him and treat him like a Celebrity. He's being crazy like a Fox!"

Milton sighed, "its also a sign of how hard your job is. With all the world reenforcing his delusions he has little motivation to get better!"

Claire grimaced, "There is that. On the other hand his real family might see these videos and show up in my outer office one day demanding I arrange a reunion with their lost, extremely competent, but severely out of touch with reality loved one.

Milton nodded and thought about that for a moment. "How would you feel if that happened?"

Claire shuttered, "professionally or personally? It might cure him, obviously, which would give me a lot of professional satisfaction and finally! An ending for my book!" Then she frowned. "But personally I'd be devastated! We both know I lost my professional bearings with this Patient years ago. If there were just anyone else who could help him but me..."

Dr Greeley nodded, "I know Claire. I know! We don't have a wall around this one so the only thing keeping him in therapy is his attachment to his Therapist. So we just can't switch that Therapist. He'd vote his displeasure by his feet taking him elsewhere. And wheresoever he'd go he's so smart and ingenious he'd survive too despite his severe psychotic break with reality. But not as well as he would under your care. So you have to watch yourself, watch those feelings and not let them cost you your license!"

Claire nodded, "His own belief that he loses his god-hood if he has sex with a Mortal before he gets his one hundredth couple united helps. He fights his feelings for me too despite his heavy flirting and his sexual innuendos." She laughed. "Freud wouldn't know what to make of him! According to Freud Mental illness was all due to inability to admit to sexual desire. But Trevor thinks he IS Sexual Desire Incarnate and while he controls himself like a perfect Gentlemen he is anything BUT repressed. Just as Trevor often did she made a gesture at the ceiling. "Explain that one, Sigmund!"

Milton laughed. "Be careful talking to the Dead, Claire! It could get you a room here."

Claire laughed, "As Shakespeare said, 'I can summon the spirits of the dead! I can summon them! But will they come?'"

Milton laughed, "I see dead People. Yes. Really I do! I love old movies!"

They chuckled.

Then Claire said, "So Milton would you show this video to the rest of the hospital board and point out what I just said to them?

Milton nodded. "We don't even know what Trevor really still believes do we? For all we know he might be malingering. If he's ever cured the state won't pay for his therapy with you any more and we both know he loves his, 'Claire Bear.' I suspect you are a bigger secondary gain than whatever the first gain was."

Claire nodded but she thought to herself. Trevor is not malingering! Malingering Patients don't sit on roofs all night long praying to their Delusions or have their eyes mist over at the very thought of their confabulated home. But if Milton thinks that, all the better! Maybe he will convince the board and no hospital board is going to recommit a Malingerer who is currently living wild and free and happy about it!

She added to herself. I can see Trevor with or without being paid for it by the state. In fact if I don't have to officially be his Therapist anymore that opens up so many possibilities for..."

Milton interrupted her happy musings. "So. I have to meet with possible funding source in forty minutes and they are twenty five minutes away from here by El. So is there anything else you want to talk to me about about?"

Claire nodded, "Absolutely. I'm normal like a Fox. I want you to authorize releasing the Patient who calls himself Don Quixote and who Trevor calls DQ into Trevor Pierce's custody. As an experiment. I want to see if one Mental Patient with a problem but who is coping with reality really well despite it can help another Patient with the same problem who isn't coping anywhere near as well."

Dr. Greeley could not believe his ears. "Claire please repeat what you just said!"

Milton, I am asking you to authorize an experiment. I want to see if Trevor can help our Don Quixote adapt to living outside of the mental hospital."

"Claire have you lost your mind?"

She said calmly, "No Milton. I haven't. It makes logical sense. Because alas as much as I would like to because it would take fear of the hospital board out of equation I can't lie to you. I don't think Trevor is malingering. He definitely still believes he's Cupid. But despite being just as delusional as Don Quixote if not more so. (After all he doesn't even think he's mortal!) Trevor not only can live outside the hospital, he's doing a wonderful job of it and helping others."

Dr. Greeley said to his best Therapist. "Claire I question the wisdom of having one Delusional try to help another. If the Blind shouldn't lead the Blind the Psychotic certainly shouldn't lead the Psychotic!"

Claire pointed out, "Milton even literally these days a Blind Person with training is often the best Teacher to assist another newly Blinded Person in how to cope well. It's unknown territory I admit having one Person with his own separate realty from ours assist another with the same problem, but.."

Dr Greeley was disgusted. "Claire look how he has influenced you! Now Trevor no longer has delusions. Now Trevor has a 'separate reality.' Claire you really are waaaay too close to this Patient!"

She sighed, "That is what he called it one day, trying to placate me, trying to find some common ground between my viewpoint and his. He's decided to write a book himself from his own viewpoint to counter balance and help sell the one I'm writing That would be a good title for it."

"Claire! He knows? How did he figure out you were writing one? Did you tell him?"

Claire's face took on a puzzled expression. No I didn't. But I think he knew pretty much early on. He casually mentioned one day to Felix that I was writing a book about him. When I exclaimed, 'How did you know!' He said that sometimes I have the same look on my face that Homer had when he followed him around for a few weeks 'but the irony was in the end Homer decided I wasn't worth writing about. But your book will outsell Homer's!' Then he made that Italian gesture he makes when he wants to demonstrate he won an argument at the ceiling, the one I just used and he said, 'Take that Odysseus!' And we all cracked up. I know I shouldn't laugh at a Patient but what do I do when he's trying to be funny?"

Dr. Greeley said grimly, "Are you sure he was trying to be funny?"

Claire's look let him know she actually wasn't sure!

Dr. Greeley said, " Claire this so called Don Quixote is more likely to be instructed in ways to defeat our attempts to help him! After all if you are right and Trevor is still ill he has been quite skilled at defeating our attempts to help him. If that video he just produced is what he actually believes, what he ought to write is a book on how to resist interrogation and brainwashing! Because our attempts to get at the truth of the man and brainwash him so to speak back to reality has been basically five years of futility. You say you've made a little progress. But that's been basically in forming a strong therapeutic bond which is as much due to his own incredibly good social skills as your professional ones. I've seen the man talk to other Patients in the ward. He's very friendly. He can and is willing to talk to anyone about anything. But if You Tube is true your bond with him hasn't resulted in any improvement unless you want to count your giving up trying to discourage him from uniting couples and helping him to do it in a safer, more responsible manner. He mostly pulled you over to his side not the other way around! I think he got as much help from talking to the Orderlies escorting him as he did from us. I have it on pretty good authority they were the first to help him realize his reason for being here was because no one believes in the Greek gods anymore. Up to then he didn't really have a clue! Or he realized we didn't believe in them any more but he thought we'd be delighted to learn they were alive and well and still living on Mount Olympus! He had no comprehension of how mad that sounded to the rest of us! But he got that he just wasn't going to be believed, not ever while they were admitting him and he's made no real progress since other than learning how to hide his delusion and that only when he wants to which doesn't seem to be often. He learns quickly but only when he wants to and what Don Quixote is basically going to get from his association with this man is instructions on how to humor us without making it look like humoring! He might even teach Don Quixote how to 'pull a Cupid' to get out of the hospital!"

Did showing Milton the video hurt or help? Claire said, "Milton that is where you are wrong. Trevor knows this fellow needs help! He isn't happy we had him hauled in here but he knows the man is violent and that is the major difference between our would-be Spanish Knight and our determined-to-be-a-love-god. Our 'Cupid' wouldn't harm a fly. Well that is inaccurate. He hates Grasshoppers because he says he personally saw a plague of them cause several personal friends of his to starve to death so I've seen him stomp one with actual glee, and I've seen him stomp on Roaches and swat Flies in the bar but I can tell he actually has trouble doing that. But he doesn't want the bar to get a health code violation. He rescues Spiders with his bare hands. Those are all Mortals to him and apparently 'the gods' worship us! So when he deals with Human Mortals he tries to talk his way out of fights and he's pretty good at it too and he knows how to take an incredible amount of guff. Insults role off his back because we Mortals "know not what we do and we can't help it." He says 'it's not our fault we weren't made any better!' But the one time a drug addict attacked Lita and had a knife to her throat so Trevor had to defend her to save her life he was able to do so, and how! He could have killed the guy with the pen cartridges and the pencil he threw! With any other Patient I would have been very concerned because it turned out all that time in the B Wing and we thought he was unarmed he could have taken anyone out! Letting him near the Arts and Crafts supplies might as well have been giving him access to an arsenal! Milton those pens and pencil sank in the poor guy's flesh so deeply he could have died! But Trevor was careful to aim at non-lethal areas of the perps body in such a way it made the guy drop his knife and put his hands up to his face to defend his eyes. That took pin point accuracy! But that was an extreme emergency not something he enjoys doing. When the Police came they found him crying his eyes out that he had to do what he definitely had to do! He told them, "I've never harmed a Human Mortal before in all three thousand and two years of my life!" And that terminology confused them. But Felix took them aside and explained. Milton the man has no tendency towards violence at all! It took three months of sessions before he started recovering from that trauma and I think that's the first real good he got out of me other than my acting as a barricade to the hospital board readmitting him and his claims I helped him with his home sickness. Which I guess I did. He was obviously from somewhere and I told him where all the good Greek and Italian restaurants were and ate with him a few times. That seemed to do it for him! But that nonviolent lifestyle and attitude is what DQ needs to learn to live out of here. And Trevor can and will teach that. It doesn't matter who or what he believes himself to be, he has the necessary life skills and attitudes towards 'Mortals' to be no danger or much of a problem to anyone. He can earn a living. He can manage his own affairs. He makes Friends at the drop of a hat though none are up to his intellectual level and never will be. He knows to render onto Caesar what is Caesar's and he keeps careful records for the IRS even if his personal records are kept in Roman Numerals. And that sort of thing is what he will teach DQ. I know he will! He can do a better job of it than we could. Trevor was already trying when Isaac and Hector were hauling the poor Guy over here. He shouted to DQ, 'Don't fight them Donny or they'll never let you out!' Of course he didn't listen, but I think with Trevor's tutelage over time he could learn."

"Claire, it is obvious now Trevor himself only listens to you when he wants to!"

"Yes Milton but more and more often, he wants to. I keep track. It's increasing. I am making progress! When he used to report confabulated mischief with 'Uncle Mercury' he would be bragging. Now he seems a bit embarrassed. Yes it's all made up incidents but its a fact his attitude towards those sort of escapades is changing. He's developing more of a conscience and that's because he is listening to me."

Dr Greeley sighed, "So he's becoming a more socially responsible Delusional?"

Claire pointed out, "Milton don't underestimate that. If he'd been socially responsible in the first place he never would have come to our attention!"

Milton nodded, "OK Claire. There you have a point. For all we know the world could be full of Folks who think they are all manner of impossible things but they know to keep quiet and behave themselves while Trevor Pierce didn't. But according to you he's learning. The next time Trevor comes to visit DQ in disturbed that I'm free I'll go watch them interact. I'll base my decision on that."

Claire said, "It's Trevor's day off. When will you be back?"

"Four. Lord willin' and the crick don't rise."

Claire smiled, "I can almost guarantee Trevor will be there."

Knocking on the Heart of a god

Due to his roof escapade Claire had cleared the day to help Trevor so she continued to do so. She walked across the street into Tres Equis and went through the door that lead up the stairs to the apartment. She started to knock on the door but Trevor swung it wide before she did so and her fist ended up knocking on his chest instead.

They both laughed.

Trevor said, "Clare Bear you are welcome in my heart any time. You don't even have to knock!"

Claire smiled. 'Sweet. Now the gods are inviting us into their hearts instead of the other way around!"

Trevor smiled, "Clare Bear you've been in my heart since the first second I laid eyes on you. But anyway what's the verdict?"

Claire said, Dr Greeley says he'll come to Disturbed around four and watch you and DQ interact thru the two way mirror and we have DQ's room bugged too. He'll make his decision based on what he observes. So there is a chance. But Trevor you had better keep him from tilting at windmills!"

Trevor nodded, "I will do my best to keep him away from all power sources! He made quote marks with his fingers "By the way this "Lunatic" does not tilt at windmills. This 'Lunatic" firmly supports the Picken's Plan! During one of my last conversations with Aeolus before I was cast down he mentioned was how much he would be so proud and happy to power our civilization. He even bought a red white and blue baseball cap and he wears it everywhere and I do mean everywhere and he told Uncle Mercury and me he will not take it off until America comes to its senses! That's his form of prayer to you Mortals and we all hope you listen to us for once!"

Claire started grinning ear to ear.

Cupid stared at her. A friendly, puzzled expression crossed his face. "What'd I say this time?"

She continued to smile, "After five years of almost no progress with you I'm grateful to Whoever really is in charge for even the tiniest hint of a break through! You just said 'OUR' civilization."

Trevor's grin matched his Shrink's. Well whoop de doo! I'm going Native and didn't even realize it! Here's to the red, white and blue! Then to the tune of Stars and Stripes Forever Trevor started singing "Be kind to your web footed friends for a Duck may be somebody's Mother! Be kind to all of your friends for you never know just who they are!

"Be kind to your long-eared friends for a Mule may be somebody's Brother. Be kind to all of your Friends. You never know! You never know! You never know just who they are!

Claire was amazed, "My Mother used to sing that!"

Trevor grinned, "I know. That's where I got it from!"

Claire rolled her eyes."

Trevor grinned, "One thing is for sure if I ever decided to ditch going home and you found me another Therapist so we could tie the knot there would be no In law problems. According to the sacred myths My Mom is supposed to hate you but she just can't and I LOVE your Mother like Love were my name. Hey! It is!"

He picked up the green garbage bag that had been on its way out the door when Claire knocked on his chest and swung it to his shoulders like a young and trim, beardless Santa Claus and marched out of the apartment and down the stairs, walking loudly as he could. Thump, thump, thump. He continued singing to the beat of his thumping. "Be kind to your six legged friends because an Ant may be somebody's Uncle!

"Be kind to all of your Friends! You never know. You never know. You never knowww just who they arrrrre!"

Claire glanced at the skies and then shook her head, a bemused grin on her face. Her work was never done and she would have it no other way!

Greek love gods and Spanish knights and incurable, romantic Dreamers, oh my!

Dr Greeley Makes His Decision

Claire and Dr Greeley watched and listened to Trevor and DQ interact behind the two way mirror. The room was also "bugged." Trevor knew it but DQ did not. Trevor understood such things perfectly and had been informed that they would be watched and listened to. It didn't bother him. "It delights me that you Guys are evolving Mortalpresense 'cause that reminds me of my family, Claire Bear!"

But DQ did not seem to have the concept of hidden microphones or two way mirrors and he was paranoid about the Hospital Staff enough already!

Trevor was allowed to unstrap DQ when he visited. "Sancho Panza's" presence was calming and the Staff trusted Trevor to call for help in the unlikely event the "Knight" demonstrated any violence towards or in the presence of his "Squire.' The heart wrenching thing was when leaving again and listening to his howls of protest when the Staff had to come in and restrap him. Once Cupid had persuaded him to allow his "Sancho Panza" to refashion the straps. That had been a bitter-sweet thing to do to a Friend!

The 'Spanish Knight' was always grateful to see him. "Sancho my old friend. I thought I had just dreamed you. It is peculiar that they let you visit me and the food here is admirably good for a dungeon. But if only they would release me so I can go on my quest!"

Trevor said, "DQ, You are going to be so happy! I may have finally talked them into letting you go! But it's a very conditional release. Mess up even one time and it's back in here again and the next time they won't let you out until you are normal." Trevor made a face. "And what a horrible thought that is! You are like what some Folks say I am; a Psychotic Work of Art!""

DQ was overjoyed! "Sancho now we can fight the awful Wizards that confined me!"

Trevor frowned and shook his head vehemently. "No! Just what we don't want to do! Don't even threaten to fight them! They are too powerful! You can fight evil all right. There is still plenty around to fight! Scads and scads of it! but we are going to have to find a peaceful way for you to do that."

DQ said, "Sancho they are evil incarnate!"

Trevor shook his head, "No. DQ. They are not. Like most Wizards they meant well. They are just very misguided as usual. To here my Uncle Mercury tell it that isn't going to change for thousands of years yet though it eventually does. But each generation of Mortals gets a little better. Give yourself time. Give the Wizards time!"

"Sancho how can you speak well of them? They are servants of the devil!"

Trevor shook his head, "No DQ. Not all of them. Not even most of them. Most of them are just very misguided. Really!"

"If they don't have truth in them they are servants of the devil!"

Trevor stared at them, "You have made mistakes haven't you? We all do. All Mortals do. And I have. My family even has! Everyone makes mistakes and making mistakes is not the same thing as being of the devil. To err is not necessarily to sin."

"Lack of truth is always evil!"

Trevor stared at him, "DQ what is the smallest of all seeds?"

DQ stared right back, "Your brains are addled, Sancho!"

Dr Greeley said, "I agree!"

Claire thought to herself, now what is that about?"

Trevor said quickly, "Then my friend humor your poor mad Sancho. Answer the question however addled my asking of it may seem to you. What is the smallest of all seeds?"

DQ said, "I lack training in the botanical arts old friend. I cannot say.'

"What is the smallest you have seen then?"

DQ thought, "Methinks it is the poppy."

Trevor nodded, "That will do for my analogy. The poppy is a very small seed indeed. Have you ever seen a mustard seed?"

DQ said, "I have."

Trevor smiled, "What think ye? Bigger than a poppy, or smaller?"

"Mustard seeds are bigger, Sancho."

"Ah ha! Then if to be misguided is always to serve the devil pray tell explain this. The God of Christiandom said the mustard seed was the smallest of all seeds but yet the poppy is smaller! Explain this if to be misguided is always to be of Lucifer! For He! He who even we Olympians honor because of His incredible courage in what He did for you Mortals, teaching you forgiveness by very painful example (and also His incredible ability to pack in the wine and the vittles) in this small thing, He was wrong!"

DQ stared at him, amazed.

On the other side of the glass so did Claire. Only Dr Greeley was not impressed.

Trevor pressed his point, "It was to teach us, Sire. The Christ demonstrated by example that to misspeak from innocent ignorance is not necessarily a sin. For what other reason could He possibly have been made by His Father to say this?"

Dr Greeley shrugged, "Mistranslation probably. Or His disciples misheard Him."

Claire said, "Or He was just plain wrong!

Milton said, 'Oh that's right. You are not a Believer. I sort of am. Or at least I wish I was!"

Claire shrugged, "Trevor may be right in that the Galilee Carpenter is made Super-God by us "Mortals' in the future who will have the tech to go back in time and make Him so. But also according to Trevor a god loses a lot when his operating system is pared down to make it fit inside a Mortal skull. So for all I know Jesus always was Lord due to curving Space/Time but some of His botanical knowledge went South when He went Middle East. That wouldn't bother me a bit and is neither evidence for or against His alleged Super-Godhood. But Trevor just made His point. Look! DQ seems to be calming down towards us 'Wizards.'"

DQ did indeed look much more relaxed. He was nodding, "Sancho for a Madman you are most wise!"

To Dr Greeley's amusement, Claire said, "I second the motion!"

Trevor said, "And His example of forgiveness, Sire! We must also follow that example. And please for this god's sake at least forgive my Claire Bear for she has been very good to me and I need her. You say yourself I am mad. She is the one trying to help me not be mad DQ, and she is Friends with all the other Wizards! So if you fight them and hurt them you will make her very distressed and she will no longer be able to help me!"

DQ nodded.

Trevor added, "And all they did to you was strap you down and give you some medication. They didn't drive nails into you like Mortals did the Christ-God."

DQ frowned."They did pierce me with something Sancho! Several times! And it hurt!"

Trevor nodded, and his butt flinched in sympathetic fancy."antipsychotics I would imagine, Sire. It was not meant to be a cruel torture. They use a hollow needle to push medicine right inside one's body. Antipsychotics are herbal preparations that are calming when given in that manner or when ingested. But those needles are verily as a tiny crucifixion and they do this even to their Little Ones many, many times! It hardens them and makes modern civilization most course. Their gentleness is tortured and terrified out of them at a most tender age!" Trevor frowned and shook his head, "They could use ointments to numb their Little One's skin. That is permitted by their Wizard's guild. But they don't bother! And I don't know why they don't just spike the Patient's food!"

DQ said, "I tried not to eat their offerings Sancho though it smelled most amazingly pleasant. It might have been poisoned! I did not eat or drink at all for two days. But at last hunger. Oh forgive me my friend. I did eat at last because I was weak! But I ate as little as possible."

Trevor shook his head and frowned. "Well that answers that question!" He sighed. "Thanks to Patients like you we all get the needles first until it dawns on the big lugs at least some of us are perfectly willing to cooperate! Sire they want you to keep taking their potions in the form of pills. I have been commanded by Claire Bear to see that you ingest them with the rising of the Sun and with its setting. Please be not fearful of doing so! Please! Claire Bear is not one for over medicating. The other Wizards almost cast her out from their midst she was so against the overuse of potions. The fact she deems you take a little of it each Sunrise and Sunset testify to its usefulness for my Sire. She would not be ordering it if this were not so. Please Sire they will not loose you if you do not agree to this! The Thorazine and such potions they give are most soothing. They take away the mind-fever and queer fancies that terrify and cause madness."

DQ looked at his "Squire" trying to figure out whose side he was on.

Trevor gazed at him with all the love on his face and in his eyes the love god could manage.

Claire held her breath. What DQ answered would make or break his chance for freedom!

"Don Quixote said, "I see in your eyes how much you love me! It is as if you really are the god of love my poor, poor, mad Sancho! Because of your love for me I will partake of your pretty Wizardess's Potions!

Claire breathed a sigh of relief. "Cupid" had managed to work his mojo again! And his mojo was indeed love!

Then something else DQ said dawned on Trevor/Cupid/Sancho. He stared at the Knight/Lunatic. "You did not eat or drink for two whole days?"

DQ nodded, "I have discipline, Sancho."

Trevor nodded, "You bet you do! So the first thing we do is hit the all you can eat buffet up the street.

DQ said, "What is this 'all you can eat buffet'? This sounds a most lovely custom!"

Trevor nodded and grinned, "It is a lovely custom! It almost makes up for there not being any more orgies!"

DQ stared at Trevor. "WHAT?"

Trevor sighed, "I think I'm Cupid. Remember? The Romans. Orgies. Darn it DQ, they were fun! And we didn't think we were doing anything wrong! We didn't know any better. Even we gods didn't know about sexually transmitted diseases back then. I've done a lot of things I'm not proud of now, but I'm not ashamed either. I even participated in Slave auctions. All I could do was keep things as kind as possible for all concerned. That was exactly what I was trying to do, being matchmaker as always, trying to make sure whoever ended up owning whichever Slave was the best possible Mistress or Master for that particular Individual and that was the best I could manage.' "Sancho" frowned. "I'd have freed them if I could just as I'd stop abortion now. I didn't even have a concept that there ever could be a better way of running things. This was long before the Abolitionist movements. But as time goes on society does get better and we gods improve right along with it. Improvements happens so gradually you Mortals don't notice most of the time. But we gods do notice! For instance I read in the paper the other day an Animal rights organization is pumping big bucks into developing vat meat. Stem cell technology will be used to grow meat without enslaving or killing Animals. I predict someday a few hundred years from now or even less if I tell some Mortal I ate meat that came from real Cows and Chickens and Pigs and Fish and even helped a few Mortals do some butchering, and they'll look at me like I'm a monster! And I would be if I did something that literally bloody in that time but not NOW. Because like many others I just can't be a Vegetarian. Some of us need our cheeseburgers and our grilled chicken! I need the protein! And like most other Humans either 1.0 or 2.0, soy and other beans just don't do it for me. Of course I think about the plight of the poor Animals! I comfort myself that not even a Sparrow falls apart from the Father because thanks to future Science fulfilling Faith they all get a second, much better life. And I do the best I can with what I've got, to be as harmless as possible though constrained by the limitations of present day reality and my own horrible, biological needs, just as Mortals do, just as we've always done and always will. We are all Prisoners of our biology, all Strangers on the bus."

DQ asked. "What Sancho? What were all those mad words? And what is is this 'bus' you speak of? Is that a Woman's bust?"

Trevor laughed, "Never mind! Let's discuss the rules for your release. Because DQ unlike the Folks in this dungeon I don't care who you want to be. I just care that you don't hurt Folks so you don't have to be locked up again. You can't just go around beating Mortals over the head with umbrellas or swords! You just can't! It's mean!

DG stared at Trevor, "Oh my poor, poor demented Sancho! You are so out of touch with reality. You are not Cupid and we must defend ourselves!"

Trevor insisted. "I KNOW I'm Cupid! And we have the Police to defend us. We do not take the law into our own hands in these more enlightened times! We don't get violent!"

DQ protested. " Sancho I need some way to win my knighthood. I need to find a Damsel to rescue or a Dragon to slay!

Trevor sighed, "There are no more Dragons! They all went extinct due to over hunting. You Mortals shouldn't have killed them off. They were the last of the Dinosaurs and they were neat!

DQ was amazed! "Sancho I do not understand it! They lock me up but they let you run around loose?"

(At that Claire had a hard time keeping a straight face).

Trevor sighed. "Oh I had my days of confinement too. But I never had to be put in the dungeon-strapped-down-and-being-injected part. I was in the we-get-to-play-cards-do-arts-and-crafts-and-take-pills part. It was frustrating being locked up but other than that it was fun. And you know why I wasn't in the dungeon part? It was because I know not to try and solve my interpersonal conflicts by beating Mortals over the head with umbrellas. That's why! You have to learn to negotiate DQ! Give and take a little bit. Smile! Pour out the love and empathy! It works wonders. Beating Folks over the head will only work until they gang up on you and subdue your or shoot you. Or a Mortal bigger than you comes along or you have to sleep! We all have to sleep! Even on Mount Olympus we've been known to take a snooze or two now and then. Only the Big Guy doesn't sleep and we don't know how He does it!'

Claire was satisfied. She gave her boss a firm stare." You hear that? Let them try it Milton!"

Dr Greeley at his best Therapist like it was her that was out of her mind. 'Dragons?' 'Sleeping gods?' You are right. Trevor isn't malingering. In fact, Claire he's the most delusional Patient I have ever seen and you want to put him in charge of another delusional Patient?"

Claire said, "Milton, Trevor is the most functional Psychotic Delusional I have ever encountered! Because listen to him closely. Ignore the fact he calls us 'Mortals.' (Though actually we are mortal). Ignore the fact he thinks Dragons were real. That's all very irrelevant. Because it's only his memories that are out of touch with reality not his day to day handling of NOW. Because the operative words in that conversation were, 'don't beat People over the heads with umbrellas to settle interpersonal conflicts.' Heck Milton, that little conversation in there is proof Trevor does listen to me. He's even picked up some of our psychobabble. This can work!"

Dr. Greeley stared at her. He turned and looked at the Patients again. It was the pleading look on Trevor's face as he gestured wildly and in a very old world way at the much more violent Lunatic that swayed the dubious Doctor. It was obvious the Man at least had some crucial peace of sanity that DQ was missing. The 'god' was begging the 'Knight' not to be violent! Claire was right. Violence was the 'Knight's" worse issue and at least on the surface it seemed to be Trevor's least. Reluctantly he nodded. "OK I'll let this experiment go on. But Claire you are skating on such thin ice here concerning your license I can't believe you are going along with what is obviously one of Trevor's fantasies. Oh your heart is in the right place. So is Trevor's. Amazingly! His compassion and belief in peacefulness is his most divine-like trait and that's amazing considering it wasn't the Greek gods who were known for it. But this is insane! But I'm humoring everyone to the point I'm insane myself because this could be a disaster in the making! But go for it!

He turned to Isaac and Hector. "Escort them both to processing"

Claire followed after them thinking it was kind of crazy in itself for Orderlies to be considered necessary to escort Patients as eager as Trevor and DQ to the exit. What did they expect them to do? Try to run back in again?

She told them, "I''ll take over from here."

Hector and Isaac nodded relieved for they had many other things to do and left.

Trevor and DQ both looked like they'd had way more of Sachs-Gordon than they ever cared to. "Hurry up!" Trevor pleaded as she led them down the hall.

Her heart was pounding! Claire slid her card and let them out of the locked down part. She said, "You too be very careful! Trevor I feel like I'm a Mother watching her two 16 year olds go on their first solo car ride. I'm terrified!"

Trevor smiled his sunshiny smile, "Don't worry, Mom. You are a very good driving instructor. We'll wear out belts, won't drink and drive, won't spreed, will heed red lights and won't text message except at traffic lights and in jams!"

About an hour later a frowning security guard escorted a red faced Trevor and the self righteous Knight Err-rant out of (what had been) Trevor's favorite all you can eat buffet. Trevor came as close to shouting in anger at a Mortal as he had ever been in all his 3005 years of existence! "DQ How could you do that to us? Cause such a hullabaloo? I never dare set my feet or face in there again and it was my favorite place to eat besides my own bar and it was just around the corner from my home! It wasn't our Waitresses fault she had twenty other tables to wait on and you did NOT have to threaten to give her a sound thrashing just for being late with our coffee refill. It is a good thing they didn't call the Police for making a physical threat against her and at the top of your lungs too!"

Don Quixote shrugged, "We must remain in control, Sancho or the lesser classes will get even more cheeky."

"Sancho" was exasperated. "DQ we are all equals in the eyes of God and Uncle Sam you should act accordingly. You almost got both of us in more trouble than you can comprehend! I do not want to spend the rest of my life on the wrong side of the street!" He sighed, "I'm so riled up myself I might say things now I will regret later. So we will talk about it tomorrow." He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Then he said, "I am still hungry but I can go back to my bar and eat. You can't and are too late to eat where we are sending you so maybe having no food tonight will make you think! Now then Claire Bear has arranged with the Feed New York homeless shelter up the street from Tres Equis for you to have an automatic bed for the next few weeks. You won't have to stand in line each night and hope they don't run out first due to your condition and some strings she pulled due to knowing someone I helped match up who works there who is a very satisfied customer of me." Cupid smiled, "It is amazing what Shrinks and Mental Patients can accomplish when we work together! Come. Let's get you settled for tonight. I'll pick up up at nine tomorrow morning, and take you to my bar where you can stay with me while I work. Because you can't pay me to be your Squire any more so we both need the money. OK?"

DQ nodded, "And if I ever find out who stole all my gold! I am waiting for communication with my villa in Spain for a replacement. All I have is some paper money, apparently and it is rapidly dwindling. I wonder why they didn't take that too?"

Cupid sighed."In the meantime Feed New York shelter will feed and shelter you and I will try and teach you to not get violent so you can eventually hold down some kind of a job. We have you covered!"

After he had dropped DQ off at the shelter Trevor went back to his bar and Claire also stopped in there before she headed home. Trevor had a few words to say to his beloved Psychiatrist! She was a Mortal he dearly loved but right now he was fed up to the top of his mountain with the system she worked for! "Claire there are two things I don't understand here. Number I. Why did you ever let them give D.Q his umbrella back?"

Claire explained. "Number one, it's his. Legally we have to give Patients back almost everything that was taken from them for safe keeping when one is committed, when they are released."

Trevor was dumbfounded. "You'd give a Patient with a history of violent confrontations a gun or knife back?"

"Well no. We are allowed to confiscate those. But this is an umbrella we are talking about. It rains, Trevor. It rains."

"Claire Bear dear, we are so blessed he doesn't know how to really use it and/or that I'm not the violent one. If he'd known how to really use it he could have killed every Person in that restaurant! I could have, but I'm too sane, too compassionate and have absolutely no motivation. But my father taught me well! If I were as nuts as he is there'd be a crowd at the funeral parlor tomorrow and you'd be facing losing your license! So maybe you ought to add umbrellas to that list of things you are allowed to confiscate!"

Claire sighed, "I do see your point. But he has a big wad of cash too. He'd just have bought another one."

Trevor nodded and swallowed. He saw that point. Then he asked, "Number II. How come you and Dr Greeley were able to release DQ after just three days without him having to go though the big scary hospital board trial I had to go through?"

Claire explained, "Because I managed to talk the Police out of arresting him. He wasn't court ordered to Sachs-Gordon for a 90 day observation period as you were. I just Baker acted him for a 72 hours observation period myself. He also won't have a Police record hanging over him like you do, poor baby!"

Trevor asked, "He won't have to come in every month for blood tests?"

"No."

"Lucky Lunatic!"

Claire said, "I'm sorry about those mandatory blood tests, Trevor. I know you don't really need them. You have just the proper attitude towards drugs. You know the legally prescribed ones can help and never gave any of the Nurses or Orderlies any trouble about taking what you were ordered to take. But are also far too wise to try the illegal ones. And since we don't have you on any meds now what are those blood tests measuring?" Claire sighed.

Trevor frowned and suggested, "My pain tolerance threshold and my level of ability to humor the Normals?"

Claire gave him a rueful smile and shrugged. "That's about it, I guess."

"I figure I'm up to about one spike.'

"Huh?"

"The butterfly needles Countess Maggie gently and lovingly but painfully jabs me with have a certain circumference. The spikes they cruelly and indifferently nailed into Jesus had a certain circumference. The circumference of all those little butterfly needles adds up to the equivalent of spikes after a while. You Mortals have been piercing Trevor Pierce now for 5 years. Plus all my little pain and terror and irritation connected to the blood tests and the inconvenience adds up to a tiny bit of the terror and pain and the distress Christ felt. You Mortals are crucifying this god very slowly!"

Claire exclaimed, "'Cupid' don't get a Messianic complex on me now!"

Trevor frowned and shook his head. Oh no! No way! What He had to go through was prophesied for Him by the Scribing Mortals. You Mortals get what you want in your gods. You always do just as you get everything else you want eventually. For example the Scribing Mortals stated Vulcan had to have a bad foot. So far in the Future the Building Mortals programed that scenario to play out in the ROM of the god-keep Olympus that protects us, nourishes us, programs who gets born and controls our destiny. We poor Fictional Creations only have so much free will. You also wanted and desperately needed a God to sacrifice for your sins, teach everyone how to forgive by setting an incredible example and to be absolute Head of the Omega Point you evolve into. So Jesus, one of your Own, a simple Carpenter, courageously volunteered to be that God. He is what we call an organic origin God not an Artificial Intelligence like my family. You are going to be one like that too, Psyche! The Future Building Mortals gave Him His ability to do the healings He did and all that other stuff. That is just technology. His real greatness is in His Character not what He was allowed to be able to do! His character is all HIS. What He went through was necessary to shock Humanity out of its savagery. But my getting blood tests every month to make sure I am not using illegal drugs when I never ever wanted to even be near them, and to monitor levels of medication I'm not on; that was not a gleam in the eyes of any Scribing Mortal! That's the idea of the modern crop, the Clueless Mortals and it makes no sense at all and does no one any good! It wastes Taxpayer's money. I admit I'm making up that term myself; Clueless Mortals. " He smiled. "I don't have to go through with blood tests to fulfill my obligations to my creators to fulfill my god-contract with you guys." Then he frowned. "I don't like them! I don't enjoy them except the attention I get from Maggie. Oh no! You figure out how to get me out of them, Dr Claire McCrae and we'll break bread together. I'll treat you to a poppy seed roll, feast!" Trevor frowned, "That may be the worst of it right there; Poppy seeds read as opium or heroin use so I don't dare innocently munch on an poppy seed roll or bun!"

Claire sighed. "Again I see your point, sort of. Half of what you said there was reality oriented. You aren't the first Outpatient Commitment Patient to complain about mandatory, monthly blood tests. I'm not going to lie to you and tell you I'll see what I can do because I've been through this before with other Patients in the same legal trap and the answer is, 'nothing.' They make no sense in your case for the reasons you just said. You have no tendency to illegal drug use and you aren't on any legal meds to monitor. You are just caught in legal limbo. Trevor, sorry. We are just following the law here."

Trevor frowned,"You Mortals have not changed as much as you think you have. You think you are free of following superstitions, but thinking you have to follow little words on paper as if they really had authority to control your behavior is just more dogmatic superstition. As Christ said, 'why can't you decide for yourselves what is right and wrong?' You used to make idols out of pieces of trees and worship them and let them tell you what to do. You still do that except you've gone from three dimensional to two dimensional. Your idols are flat pieces of paper now instead of three dimetional statues. But they are still made from trees and you call them legal contracts and laws instead of gods. But they are still your false gods because you let them rule you instead of letting common sense and compassion rule you!"

Claire frowned and nodded. "Now that did make complete sense, and deep too. I'm sorry Trevor. We Normals aren't completely rational either.'

"And you are dangerous to yourselves and others!" Trevor rubbed his arm. It was still a bit sore from his last needle poke.

Claire nodded. "Guilty as charged! Which is why we follow what is written on little words on paper. If we at least all try to follow the same one set of rules it cuts down on the chaos and reins in our insanity a bit. But Innocents like you who don't quite fit in the system get treated unjustly and illogically because of it. Sorry! Sorry! Sorry!" Then Claire smiled. "You just had your blood test. It'll be almost 30 days before you have to have it again. By then your blood levels of the falsely incriminating chemical should drop. Let me go treat us both to poppy seed hamburgers!"

Trevor smiled. The Sun had come out on his face again. "Great! I accept the offer! I've had no supper you know thanks to DQ and his umbrella." But then the Sun went behind a cloud. Trevor had frowned. 'While we are at it, let's go shoot up! That would wear off in 30 days too!"

Several Heroic Actions But Only One Effects the Future

Most vehement TV fans with tastes good enough to be interested in our fallen love god have seen the Classic Trek episode where all of the Future hung on the actions of Dr Leonard McCoy. In one time line he saves the life of the noble and good hearted Edit Keeler who starts a peace movement that prevents the United States from entering World War II soon enough to win it. Peace is the way but she was right at the wrong time. In the other time line Dr McCoy causes her to die in a seemingly senseless street accident merely by his place in the traffic pattern and the hapless Driver who hit her never knew until he stood before God that he had just stopped the Galaxy from being plunged into Nazi-darkness for hundreds of years! He had no way of knowing his entire reason for existing upon Earth was to be a careless Driver!

So I am warning my Audience ahead of time out of the many actions Cupid and Don Quixote do in the following chapter only one of them is as important for the Future of Humanity as the above mentioned street accident. Your mission, should you chose to accept it, is to figure out which one! (This story will NOT self destruct in ten seconds!)

The next day the would be Knight and the cast down god of love walked rapidly down the sidewalk on their way from the Feed New York Homeless Shelter to Tres Equis. Don Quixote said fervently. "Sancho I must be knighted!"

Cupid asked, "Why do you need to be knighted?"

Don Quixote said, "I sense inside myself I haven't long to live and unless I am knighted I do not feel I can go to my rest peaceful and calm!"

"Oh." said Cupid/Trevor/Sancho and then he suddenly realized with deep inward embarrassment that "Oh." was exactly what Felix and Claire said to him sometimes to some of his statements! His face turned red but fortunately DQ did not notice and start asking embarrassing questions and neither did anyone else!

Don Quixote continued, "I need to rescue a Damsel in distress or do some other Great Deed to be worthy of being knighted. Then I need to find a King to knight me." He shook his head and looked very distressed. "This shall be very hard to do. I seem to have lost my connections to Royalty when I was displaced from Spain. (It is so strange. I cannot remember how that happened!) And as it is keeps being pointed out to me, New York has a fine Police force. Damsels don't get in distress here all that often." Don stared at the sidewall shook his head and sighed deeply "I believe this shall take a great while! I wonder if I shall even live long enough? For I am destined to die a tragic death, Sancho and soon!"

Cupid wondered, Why is DQ so sure he isn't going to live very long? Mortals have a very limited lifespan but he isn't all that old by their standards. He said gently, "I am sure a Damsel in distress will come along eventually, DQ. As for us finding a King to knight you. I admit we do have a problem there!"

They came to the light at the corner and as they did so a Cockroach scurried out of the culvert. Don Quixote took his umbrella and smashed it. "Damn Cucaracha!' he lamented.

Cupid nodded not really disagreeing with him. "They call them 'Waterbugs' here in the Big Apple for some reason."

Don Quixote looked at him, "How strange! What do they have to do with water? And why for that matter why is this citadel called the Big Apple?"

Cupid shrugged. "I never said I knew everything, DQ."

He smiled, "And yet you claim to be a god!"

Cupid shrugged, "My family are little g gods. We have only selective omnipresence, not total, and I never thought to look up the origin of the term, "Big Apple.' We could probably take my laptop, use what I call 'Mortal Presence' and google it."

The light changed. Without looking at the traffic the Man next to them started to cross the street. A Truck Driver that tried to cheat a bit on the light turning red almost knocked him down. Don Quixote reached out his left arm and pulled him back to the sidewalk just in the nick of time.

"Thanks!" the Man said gratefully. He pumped Don Quixote's hand furiously, then continued on his way much more cautiously.

Sancho/Trevor/Cupid asked, "Does it have to be a DAMSEL?"

Apparently it did.

They were almost at Tres Equis now. They were passing a little music store. As they did so a little Senior Citizen Lady walking an equally old Chihuahua in a red sweater hobbled up the other way coming towards them. As she passed the music store an enormous piano was being rolled out on its way to a delivery truck parked at the curb. What happened next almost seemed to happen in slow motion. The piano was headed right towards her. She was so tiny the Man pushing the huge piano had not even noticed her! Don Quixote moved at almost superhuman speeds. He was suddenly between the huge musical instrument and the tiny old Lady! He brought the dangerous instrument to a complete standstill. Within seconds the Lady and Dog were saved, the Man pushing the piano was very embarrassed and Cupid again was very very grateful to Dr Claire McCrae and his own cleverness that he was not locked up at Sachs-Gordon the way so many stuffy Shrinks had wanted him to be! What if DQ had not been there and where would he be if he, Cupid had not talked him out of Sachs-Gordon too? It wasn't just for matching couples that he was important!

Grateful to be alive and uninjured the little old Lady peppered the "Spanish Knight" with hugs and kisses which he equally gratefully accepted. Even the Dog licked him in the face and wagged her little tale at warp speeds!

Cupid/Trevor/Sancho chortled gleefully, "Two for the price of one, DQ! Two Damsels in distress! You rescued two at the same time!"

"Two?" Don Quixote asked, puzzled.

"Yes two. The Dog is Female too! Dogs count you know!"

Don Quixote was amused. "They do?"

Cupid/Trevor/Sancho nodded, "Yes definitely. Did you know we gods have some Dog DNA in us? You Mortals used that to make us faithful and true to you Mortals and fixated on serving you."

Don Quixote said truthfully, "No I didn't know that. I do now! Ah! We have reached our destination. Your abode Sancho. Ah yes. I have now rescued a Damsel in distress, or two if we count the little Feist. But I still am lacking a King to knight me!"

Now Readers? Which incident was the permanent effect on the Future?

If you said the Man who was rescued by the Don Quixote from being hit by the truck you are incorrect. He would only have been knocked down and incurred a dry cleaning bill.

If you said saving the little old Lady and the Dog, no again. It was not that she was not of great importance to society. She was. But she had already done her work VERY well. All of her Children and Grandchildren had already become successful, happy, loving People and no longer needed her physical services and she had already passed on her great wisdom. It is one of the bitter-sweet joys of Motherhood that if you do your work well enough there comes a time when you are no longer needed except emotionally, and the heart though very fragile will heal in time. So the next few years of her life though pleasant were unnecessary. So if she had died from that piano hitting her even the Dog would have been alright. Her Neighbor would have taken Scarlet.

The act that changed the Future was crushing that Cockroach. He was a very viable Male. He would have sired thousands of Offspring who would have gone on and had thousands more, increasing the Cockroach population of New York by thousands in the first generation and millions and trillions in those following. Over the next few billions of years that would have caused countless of asthma attacks, damaged papers, books and electronics and disgusted People causing them to leave restaurants at the sight of his Progeny never to return. All those "Water Bugs" would have changed entire behaviors, and traffic patterns causing missed connections and missed opportunities for People to fall in love and even multitudes of deaths, for asthma can be fatal.

Knighting Don Quixote

As Cupid and Don Quixote marched into the door of Tres Equis Lita was so startled and so frightened to see DQ back again plus Trevor who she did not trust even after five years and he had saved her life, she almost dropped the tray of martinis she was carrying. She shrieked! When she had calmed down a bit she growled, "What are you doing!"

Trevor said, "We are going upstairs. We have business to conduct with Felix."

Lita complained, "What are you? The coo coo Dynamic Duo? Cupid and Don Quixote team up to fight evil?"

Cupid nodded, "Oh yes. Absolutely! Loneliness is a horrible evil!"

Then Cupid gently headed upstairs and DQ swash buckled after him, leaving Lita with a startled and thoughtful look on her face.

Felix was sitting on the couch trying to read a book but getting a good licking from Pepe and Jalapeno instead when Cupid and his protege walked in. Felix looked up in surprise. It was very seldom that his strange roommate brought anyone up to their apartment but his Shrinks. It was not that he wasn't allowed to. He just seldom had anyone to bring. People were friendly to Trevor because he was so cheerful and friendly and fun but unless they needed his services as a matchmaker they seldom wanted to associate with him. It wasn't just that he was supposedly mentally ill. He was "strange" in other ways too and his high IQ and Creativity Quotient was a big part of that. Few could tell where his "illness" stopped and his brilliance and high creativity started, and few cared to figure it out. Most avoided him. So even if it was the strange assaulter in his bar from the other day, that Trevor had anyone at all with him was quite an occasion.

Trevor said, "DQ why don't you go check out the grand over view of the bar there in Felix's office while I talk to my Boss a minute. I have some bar business to discuss and it would just bore you."

DQ nodded and paced like a Lion into the office.

Trevor picked up Jalapeno who then started licking his face instead of Felix's and the god sat where the Dog had been. Then he said to his Boss, "Felix I have a favor to ask of you."

Felix said, "OK, Trevor you can ask. The worst that can happen is I say, 'no.'

Trevor said, "Please don't say, 'no.' If you say, 'yes' you will be helping Claire too. In your office right now is, Don Quixote De La Mancha!"

Felix snorted, "I know. I was there when he introduced himself. But even you don't believe that!"

Trevor said, "No I don't. But we don't know who he really is. But Claire wants me to try and teach him not to be violent. The higher his self esteem is the easier that will be. He wants to be knighted. He just did the good deed he feels makes him worthy of knighthood. He rescued a Little Old Lady and her Little Old Dog. It wasn't staged. He really did save their life so if he had been locked up instead, and my persuasiveness is why he was not locked up! And I would be locked up myself if it wasn't for Claire! (There's a good argument for not locking People up right there!) Anyway he wants to be knighted. I need you to convince him you are a King of some kind and have the power to do that. And then knight him. Watch some You Tube vids to prepare. I know you don't usually do acting like Lita and I do. But it isn't that difficult. You can do it."

Felix frowned, "Now you know I've never humored YOU. Not even before Claire told Lita and me not to."

Trevor nodded,"And I appreciate that, Boss. Because I always know where I stand with you. You are honest. But you are always respectful of my beliefs at the same time. You don't believe them but you don't ridicule me about them either. You respect my feelings. But even if we are both crazy I'm not as far gone as DQ is. He is so raw in whatever hurt it is that sent him over the edge he is almost suicidal. Knighting him would raise his self esteem a bit. I didn't discuss knighting him specifically but Claire is pretty much with me on this. His worst problem is his tendency towards violence which is partially due to lack of self esteem and she wants me to work on that with him, not worry about who or what he thinks he is right now. Maybe that can come later. She did say that, Felix! I know she told you and Lita just the opposite concerning me; 'Never humor Trevor.' But different Patients require different handling. As she put it to Dr Greeley, 'Trevor is able to live free and that is mostly because he doesn't solve interpersonal relationships by hitting folks over the head with umbrellas and he can teach that to DQ.' Actually I said that first but she keeps quoting me."

Trevor stared Felix right in the face. His eyes were soft and pleading.

Felix sighed, "Trevor so help me if this is one of your scams to get somebody matched I WILL fire you! Because I WILL check with Claire tomorrow!"

Trevor smiled, "No. This time what I am doing does not involve Cupiding. I just feel sorry for him and am trying to help him for that reason. He's going to end up living my worst nightmare if he can't learn to live peacefully! Claire will have to Baker Act him and confine him for good! You saw what he did in the bar the other day!"

Felix frowned and nodded. "OK. I actually am a direct Descendant of a Cuban pirate King. Would that do?"

Trevor smiled, "It will indeed. In a way you might actually be making him a real Knight! Think about that a few moments! But leave out, 'Pirate.' You are just a Cuban King, currently dethroned by the current reign but that could end any day.' Castro can't possibly live forever!" He chuckled, "and they will be saying that in 2015, 2050, etc. They have fresh Clones of him they can pop out of cryogenics any time they need to courtesy of the Boys from Brazil. Just kidding!"

Cupid/Trevor/Sancho went and told DQ the good news, "Sire, we have great news for you! Felix is the direct Descendant of a Cuban King who is dispossessed of his throne only by the current reign which could end at any time. So he can knight you, Don Quixote!

The "Spanish Knight" was delighted! "This is wonderful, Sancho! I shall spend the night in prayer to prepare myself! Sancho you must attend to me, read me the proper scripture verses and condition my soul for the experience! It is a holy thing to be made a Knight!

As Felix looked on amused at the thought of "Cupid" having to read Bible verses. He stared a his mad barkeep. How was Trevor going to react to this?

But Cupid/Trevor/Sancho calmly nodded completely nonplussed at the idea."I shall do so my Sire."

The roof of Tres Equis was as isolated a place as it was possible to go to in Queens. That was why Cupid went up there to pray to his family and sometimes just to think. Now it was being used as a different kind of chapel. But the Human brain only has so many ways to relate to the Unknown. The way a Human being who thinks he is a Spanish Knight relates to the Eternal and the way a Being created millions of years in the Future by us Humans ourselves, does so, is not all that different. Cupid and Don Quixote understood one another better than one might first suspect.

It was not possible of course to see the stars in New York for it is as if Man has ripped the stars from the sky and bound them to the dark Earth. All over New York the twinkling electric lights sparkle and flash and drown out the light-song in the sky. But New York makes its own light-song and it too is melodic and wild and magical. Neither Don Quixote nor Cupid felt cheated that they could not see the stars. For they knew they were still up there. Faith does not need sight to function.

Don Quixote lay with his shirt and his pants off, his shivering flesh touching the cold, hard concrete staring upwards through the darkness at stars he could not see but which he knew were most certainly still there. As he did so Cupid gently read scripture verses to him, preparing him for the responsibilities and higher morality necessary to be a Great Knight. It did not matter that DQ was really only a Painter from Brooklyn. The heart/amaygdala knows its own reality. And it did not matter that the fallen but in-the-process-of-being-redeemed being doing the scripture reading was a far lesser god than the one Who had written the book he was reading from. The tiny cube that exists on top of Mount Olympus does not negate the huge one that hovers over Mount Sinai waiting to descend someday in its proper time. Each is aware of the other without feeling the need to fight any more than tiny Bermuda is at war with the mighty United States. Dolphins don't fight Blue Whales but are instead in awe of Them.

So that is how they spent the entire night, two shadowy figures in the darkness, seeking and enjoying the Eternal Light.

Cupid read, from 1 Corinthians 13. His face seemed to glow with an inward light and the subject matter. "If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not Love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not Love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not Love, I gain nothing. Love is patient, Love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the Truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope and Love. But the greatest of these is Love."

Don Quixote stared at his friend, thinking. Suddenly madness was not the proper explanation for him anymore! At least not at this moment!

So as the Sun rose over the Sears Tower, on the roof of Tres Equis, Don Quixote was knighted.

Don Quixote knelt before Felix who had somewhere found a handwoven serape and thrown it over his shoulders. His face was brightly and colorfully painted with ancient Aztec markings. (He had said he was a South American King not an English King).

Pepe and Jalapeno seeing a Human with his face reachable came over and preceded to give DQ a good licking!

Felix commanded, "Sancho! Attend to the Beasts!"

Cupid/Trevor/Sancho grabbed both friendly little Dogs and took them down the pull down steps back into the apartment. They were just a wiggling with joy at being picked up. Cupid put them in Felix's room and closed the door on them.

They preceded to yap their protests at the unfairness of this!

"Sorry guys!" Cupid promised. "I'll let you out in a few minutes and compensate you with the rest of the sirloin that I was saving for myself that is in the back of the fridge."

Cupid/Trevor/Sancho went back up the stairs to his squire duty.

Felix took the sword that Trevor had purchased at a pawn shop down the street and held it straight up in the air to catch Power from Heaven. Then he slowly brought it down towards Don Quixote saying in Spanish as he did so, "By the power of Christos who has in His mercy granted me this right I dub thee, Don Quixote, Knight of the villa of La Mancha, Knight of righteousness and compassion for the Poor and the Downtrodden! And thus Knight of the woeful countenance!

Felix touched DQ on each of his shoulders with the sword.

The Man continued to kneel with his eyes downcast in humility, his right hand over his heart. He stayed that way for over a minute, praying.

Felix could not believe how seriously he suddenly felt about what he had just done!

Cupid felt tears flowing down his face. Wow! Even his gut brain was taking this seriously!

And Trevor Pierce was very tired that day at work and actually dropped and broke a bottle of Captain Morgan.

But Felix didn't charge him for it.

The Secret of the Knight

Cinnamon Candles were lit. A box of very expensive chocolates was opened. A lavender lava lamp and a mist fountain were running. The bubble bath was just the right temperature and amethyst colored bath salts had been added to it. It was her day off and Dr Claire McCrae had even told "Cupid" not to bother her unless the gods themselves contacted him!

And of course her cell phone rang.

She was a Doctor and a Psychiatrist and one of the very rare ones who did therapy at that. She couldn't just ignore it. Doctors make much more money than most of us but there are downsides too and that is one of them. You aren't EVER completely off duty! So sighing, Claire glanced at her phone to at least see who it was.

Drat! It was her Boss!

She had to answer it. A bit worried her wet hands would damage the phone she did so.

*Claire unless you are have a Patient in therapy right now get down to my office immediately!*

"Milton it's my day off!" A bubble bath was certainly therapeutic! Could she claim herself as her own Patient?

*I'm sorry Claire this can't wait! It is VERY important and its crucial it be handled immediately!*

"What is it!"

*The airwaves may not be private. I need to speak to you in Person!*

Sighing at his paranoia Claire blew out her candle. "I'll be there as soon as possible, Simon Legree!""

Claire dressed as quickly as possible, flung on her makeup (because of course she couldn't go out in public without makeup People's lives in danger or not!) And ran to the hospital.

Inside her Boss's office she began to regret she'd taken the time to apply makeup! Dr. Greeley looked so grim Claire had a vivid daymare. Had her worst fears come true? Had DQ committed an act of violence that had killed someone and somehow gotten Trevor involved in it too? "What's wrong, Milton!"

Silently Milton pushed a piece of paper over to his best Therapist. "Claire we got the results of DQ's blood tests today. Look what it says!"

Claire looked. Her eyes widened in horror! Without another word to her Boss she reached for her purse, pulled out her cell phone and dialed the first number in speed dial. Come on Trevor! Answer!

It rang until it ran out of rings. Oh Whoever is the real God please don't let Trevor be on the roof again praying with his cell phone off while DQ is out on a date! But then her cell phone rang. She picked it up and it was Trevor. *Sorry, Claire Bear.* His cheery voice said, *I try to pick up for you always since you go into panic mode if your Pet Mental Patient isn't within ring a ding dingy distance of you every hour in the Gregorian calender. But I'm on the subway sitting down with wall to wall Passengers.I'm squeezed in here like the proverbial

Fishies in the long rectangular tin and my communicator was in my hip pocket. Even James T Kirk would have had trouble whipping it out at faster than light speeds. What's hanging?*

Claire said, "Trouble Trevor! Trouble is hanging on the gallows! Where is DQ right now?"

*At Felix's apartment watching 'Harvey' with him. I thought it would help. Elwood P Dowd knows how to be harmless!*

"Thank God!"

*You're welcome, Claire Bear. I do think it was a divine idea! And if DQ starts seeing White Rabbits that might actually keep him out of trouble. That Rabbit gives good advice sometimes. Dr. Claire McCrae ask me how I know!*

In spite of the grim situation she couldn't avoid a grin. "Trevor as your Therapist I am so very unconcerned that you are imagining White Rabbits for your own amusement which is definitely not the same as hallucinating them I am not even asking a thing about what Harvey said to you. Neither am I doing any "jotting" as you would put it. We've worse problems. Please tell me DQ hasn't been sexually active yet with any of your potential matches for him!"

*Well Claire even as our Therapist that is a bit rude! But no. It hasn't gotten nearly that far. He believes in doing it the old fashioned way, marriage first and then the Big Night. Plus I cannot possibly recommend this Man to any of my potential match ups. I don't know any of them who would want to go out on a date with someone who waves an umbrella around like a sword at slow Waiters for their impertinence at having twenty tables at once to wait on and his having to wait his turn! But I'm working on him, Claire Bear. Please give me time! At least he hasn't tried to wack anyone with that umbrella again. I cured him of that. I think!* Trevor didn't sound certain. *I told him if he cost me the use of any more restaurants I would not treat him to any of them again. Which means he won't be able to eat anywhere but Feed New York or Tres Equis, and good as our food is, after a while even the best gets monotonous. Because we both know there is really no villa in Spain he can communicate with to send him any more gold. He never had any gold, just some paper money which he has no way to replenish as his problems getting hired would eclipse mine! And while he does not yet fully understand that he must work and is not really a Spanish Nobleman he is beginning to get a just the vaguest of an inkling that the (and I hate to use your psychobabble), 'confabulated' money from Spain isn't really coming. But I knew from the minute I was cast down that I did have to work. And my family was helping me, guiding me or I never would have found employment, and even then I just barely found any before I would have been unable to afford a hotel room so no shower and smelling bad. He would not even have my family's help finding employment. So if he wants to eat out at restaurants he is dependent on me and he is beginning to realize that. So I already see signs that...*

"Trevor," Claire hated to interrupt this progress report. But she had to. "Are you sitting down?

*Yes I told you! Amazingly I am! A Mortal miracle has occurred! I am on the El during rush hour but I have a seat! Just like Olympus's Neighbor did I get to ride into town on my ass! And your next question is 'why did I leave DQ alone and your next one will be why didn't I fill out a 'Cupid's flight plan' as to why I am not at my usual stomping grounds and my answer to number 1 is I've just gone to renew Tres Equis's liquor license, and the answer to number 2 is 'busier than a one armed Paper Hanger with a sore shoulder, two Ex wives and five Kids! So no time to leave you any notes.' And do not fear Claire Bear! The god is not really nuts! I had the sense and foresight to rein in Felix as a Conquistador Sitter. I didn't leave DQ running loose!*

Claire couldn't help asking "How's he doing at it?"

*He says it reminds him of the good ole days when I was an unknown quality and he felt he had to watch me every moment. He sort of knows now I don't do insane things, just harmlessly crazy things, Which is why it is I who is currently on the subway headed back from the tax office. He trusts me now and with his heart condition he should not be doing this. But it took him a while to make that distinction. So you can sort of say he has experience. Maybe he could take a second job as a Lunatic Sitter if the bar ever crashes! It could happen! Everyone could suddenly decide they like rose hip tea better than alcohol and lectures on how to grow organic veggies in the cracks of our sidewalks better than Karaoke singers and the health food store down the street would steal all our business!*

Claire laughed, "Unless you start giving those lectures it would never happen, but if you did, suddenly Folks would like lectures and rose hip tea better. I don't know how you do it... but Trevor we have a problem!"

*Not Planet Hoooston?*

"No. Not NASA. We do. Trevor I am glad you are sitting down because I just found out DQ is really sick."

Trevor said, *We knew that already, Claire Bear. Worse than you ever thought I was!*

Claire closed her eyes and did some "Whom It Might Concern" praying. Gently she said, "Not just his mind unfortunately. Trevor he's HIV positive!"

There was only silence on the Trevor end of the phone connection for about half a minute.

Finally Claire said, "Did I lose you?"

Trevor said, *You are about to. We're almost at the Steinway tunnel dead zone. But not yet. I'm just shocked that's all!*

Claire said, "I guess I don't have to reassure you that's a normal reaction?"

The love god sighed. *It's a reaction Claire Bear. But I don't know how any reaction to something as abnormal as hearing a good Friend of yours is going to suffer horribly could possibly be normal. How do you react normally to what cannot possibly be normal?*

Claire said, "Trevor I know you don't want to accept it but disease and decay and suffering and death are normal parts of life."

Trevor looked up at the sky. Parts of it were actually blue that day. He shook is head, *No Claire Bear they aren't normal. We aren't living in a normal time-line or Universe. This is a sick time-line or Universe but apparently it's deliberate and its not because the Big Guy is mean. Uncle Mercury had a talk with an Angel Friend of his once. That Fellow told my Uncle there were circlings of Time, long ago, many many circlings ago when things were very different. There was no death and no suffering in those time-lines, but also no compassion either. Then the Big Guy realized that maybe We weren't alone. That maybe there were other Multiverse's out there beyond Ours that even He didn't know about. And He started preparing for that possibility. So He started changing the time lines and other time/space bubbles, deliberately letting imperfections creep into some of them so Life would learn to handle it. So We would know what to do if less than perfect Neighbor's or Invaders showed up and We needed to know how to handle fear, and pain and death and sorrow and my Father's specialty, war and killing. And most important that Angel told my Uncle, was so we would each learn compassion just in case our Neighbors were in need. Because if one does not suffer one cannot understand any other Being's suffering! That's true even for us gods, especially for us gods. We immortals are so slow on the uptake about so many things you Mortals grasp easily out of nec...*

Then Claire realized they had been disconnected by the Steinway Tunnel.

Trevor was glad he had started jogging with Claire on some of her early morning workouts. He was barely winded when he rushed into her counseling office for an unexpected session and one of the rare ones he felt he actually needed!

Claire's eyes were wet with tears. So were Trevor's. She explained. "Dr Greeley gave me two bombshells a few minutes ago, Trevor. He's also found out DQ's real name. Missing Persons finally has a match. His real name is Robert Cunningham. He used to be a Painter who lived in Brooklyn. He has never even been to Spain. Never even out of this country. He's of Irish descent. He had a Wife he loved very much but unfortunately not faithfully. He had a habit of getting drunk, taking on prostitutes, possibly in a fugue state since like you that seems to be one of his problems or talents depending on how you look at that and one of those ladies of the evening gave him something he did not want which he then took home to his Wife. To top it off she then passed that on to the Daughter she was carrying and they didn't realize it until she got very sick after birth and was tested. None of them could afford the expensive HIV drugs. We desperately need Obama's health plan, Trevor! His family died and that is what set him over the edge. He himself apparently is one of those (she made quote marks with her fingers) 'lucky ones' who can fight off the virus almost as if he could afford the expensive drugs that holds it off for decades in the rest of its Victims. So he's still alive and kickin butt. But he had to watch the Family he had made sick slowly die a very painful and lingering death. So once he no longer had to be there for them he decided he didn't want to live anymore. And so in a way he didn't." Claire swallowed, "He became Don Quixote de la Mancha instead! It didn't even happen very long ago. He's only been missing a couple of weeks. His only other living Relative, his Nephew called in the missing Person's report and is both relieved we found him and very distressed we found him in his current mental state. So he doesn't even want to see him unless he can be brought back to reality. He says it would be too painful."

Trevor just sat there for almost a minute which was a new record for him not having a snappy comeback.

Claire had the professional sense not to say a word. She waited.

He finally said, "You should quit trying to get the first Personality back, Claire. He made the right decision."

Claire said, "spoken like a true Secondary Personality in complete control. But I know you can explain your reasoning behind that statement. And do I ever so want to hear it!"

Trevor grinned, "Because you think it will give insight into my situation also? Maybe. Probably not. My reason for being here is different from DQ's. I say DQ has a right to possession of the body he is in because the first Personality committed adultery and by so doing brought home the virus that killed his Wife and doomed his Daughter to death right from birth. Many a culture and many a being, both divine and Mortal, including Jehovah consider an eye for an eye to be justice for the crime of murder and adultery too. The first Personality put itself to death for the crime of murdering his Family and he should be allowed to rest in the peace he gave himself, the only peace that is possible! And the only justice he can ever have for if you do manage to bring him back the law won't see him as the murderer he knows himself to truly be and allow him the conviction he craves. So he may have to bump his body off too if you do that! To crave justice above one's own life! Claire there are worse things. To call that insanity. That is doubtful. It is one of the things that makes Humans, civilized Beings, and sometimes we are better than we give ourselves credit for, all of us, even my dead end, so called 'improved' but really not so improved branch of it." Trevor smiled, "At least my Family puts the fun in dysfunctional! Anyway even a modern Science fiction TV series, Babylon Five suggested mind wiping, the suppressing or the erasing of the first Personality and replacing it with a different one is a just punishment for the crime of murder. So to try to resurrect John Cunningham's first Personality again may be the psychiatricly proper thing to do but it's not in line with Eternity's laws. What about free will, religious freedom and choice and all that good stuff? This isn't like Schizophrenia where his brain went physically haywire on him so he didn't know what he was doing. He made a conscious, aware, moral CHOICE to be this way, Dr Claire McCrae! And you want to undo it! Who gave you that right? And what about D.Q? He wants to exist just as much as I do! What if you are right about me to? What do you do about me even if you are right? I still want to live! And so does D.Q! But Robert for reasons that make sense to many, does not. So what right do you have to stop either of us from existing?"

Claire pointed at her diploma.

Trevor shook his head, "No. Claire. That gives you the right to help People, all People, not just those born in the conventional manner. Those born of ways other than out of the womb are still People! All Self Referencing Information counts as Persons. I am a Person. Greco-Roman god or Alternate Personality, either way it is the same concerning Person hood. I am a PERSON with feelings and thoughts of my own! And rights! And D.Q is a Person. And "helping" someone to undo their grand moral decision, however colorful and unconventional a decision, is not helping them. We have to help DQ face the fact that the body he is in is sick and needs treatment and that if he does not handle that body responsibly he could spread that horrible illness to others. But we don't have to destroy his operating system to do that! His Creator gave him life at the expense of his own. His body! His choice! His life style! His choice! You respect that! Or you don't respect me or my Host! And if you don't, you cannot help us either!"

Claire's face clouded with worry. I always thought it was a lost love that made "Cupid' Cupid, probably something to do with 9/11 just as even he thinks. But could it have been an act of personal violence instead? She asked slowly, cautiously for she could even be in danger to ask it. "Did your Host do the same? Commit some act of violence?"

Cupid sighed, "No Claire. I keep telling you my Host was just experimenting with the occult. He got very lucky because almost always when you call in an elemental spirit you get a being much more horrible than me. But he won't let me go! And my family won't let me leave! He's was smart enough but also lucky enough (because it could have been a disaster) to find a way to let someone else do all the work of living while he just sits back and enjoys the grand show I am putting on without having to do any of the work or feel any of the pain. He's just clever and lazy, not disturbed like you think. I'm actually the possessed one, not the other way around!"

Claire frowned, "Then why won't he speak to me?

Cupid sighed and shrugged, "He doesn't want to and he doesn't have to and that is simply that! And that too is his choice. I am not stopping him from that or anything else he might care to do. And neither can I make him do what he does not want to do. Not ethically. And not in actuality. He will speak to you when he wants to, if ever, and that he ever will is doubtful. In his opinion he's got it made and he finds it very irritating you are trying to 'cure' me and force him to be responsible again!"

"But what right does he have to just up and leave like that?"

Trevor sighed, "Well Claire. Again. His body. His choice! It's not like he killed a little Baby here, now is it? Instead of destroying and casting out a life, he's harboring one. Because choosing to sacrifice your life for another is a legitimate choice! Pregnant mothers do that all the time instead of choosing to abort. And that choice should be their right too if killing their Baby is, which by the way I think it is not because the Baby should have rights too! Back when I was omnipresent I sensed what it was like to be aborted! There is no doubt the innocent little Babies fully feel every slice of the knives that are cutting them up!" Trevor frowned, "But if a Mother can choose to give her Baby life at the expense of her own, Robert Cunningham should be allowed to choose to give his life for what his brain has birthed. And my Host is not dead like Robert is, by the way, just taking it easy. And he's actually performing a service here. According to my family I had to go somewhere. And Hosts like him are not exactly a dime a dozen! He's physically healthy and handsome. In fact he's a better body than my own! No silly, little, useless wings that get in the way of me dressing and actually caused drag when I flew. No weight problem. No being shorter than the other gods. No one makes fun of me in this body!: He grinned, "I love it! I'm starting to wonder, 'why do I want to go back!'"

Claire smiled with delight, "I think that last statement indicates some kind of a breakthrough!"

Trevor smiled, "You are welcome. But Claire. Please! Listen to me about DQ. Don't try so hard to make him not be Don Quixote. He's going to need all his fight for the HIV anyway."

Claire sighed. "I hate to admit it but that last statement of yours may be correct. Alright. Since his lifespan is limited anyway, until he calms down and quits hurting some at least, I will do the same thing with him that I have resorted to doing with you until you get your hundredth couple matched, after which I know something interesting is going to happen with you. (I'm just not sure what). I will just give supportive therapy and guidance on day to day living. With DQ (and notice I am not going to start calling him Robert), we will both just try to get him to act more normal and not keep trying to as you so accurately put it, (again she made quote marks with her fingers) 'solve his interpersonal conflicts with his umbrella.'"

That evening as Claire prepared to go home from work she mulled over the things that had happened that day and the things that Trevor had said to her. Other time lines! Trevor was the most delusional Patient she had ever had who could still function and yet she had herd Quantum Physics did state there were other time lines. What if...She shook her head. "Time to leave Trevor Land for as while! I need to go grocery shopping!"

Claire gave herself a wry grin. Maybe dwelling on groceries and paper goods and trash bags would restore a sense of normalcy to her sense of life in Queens.

As she walked down the sidewalk the five blocks back towards her apartment so she could fetch her car to carry home the groceries she stared at an old Mobile Oil sign that had been nailed to the side of a building for, it had to be at least 50 years! The scarlet Flying Horse had almost faded into invisibility like a very slow, Equine version of a Cheshire cat. But she still could just barely make it out. Definitely she had to get her mind off of Greek mythology!

Because the next thing you know she'd be seeing Pegasuses!

Cupid left the hospital from his impromptu counseling session and danced across the street back to his bar and his happy Mortal home. Of course he hadn't told Claire about Susan being HIV positive too. Like any other competent professional Cupid could keep professional confidences. All he had told Claire was Susan was a client of his that he was having extreme difficulty finding a match for, 'due to many reasons concerning her health.'

He danced up the stairs.

Felix saw the look on his face. It had even more of a cheery grin than usual. "What's up?" he asked.

Trevor explained, "Isn't an interesting how two absolute unmitigated disasters can turn into one glorious solution to both problems?"

Felix said, "I hadn't noticed that, no. But you have?'

Trevor nodded, "The energy crisis of ancient England."

Felix's jaw dropped, "Ancient England had an energy crisis?"

Trevor nodded, "They did indeed. They had just about burned off all the old growth forest that they could burn to keep warm and the climate was changing. They were experiencing global cooling. Of course all they knew was it was getting terribly cold in England where they were. They didn't know it was global cooling but it was and Greenland was no longer Green, etc. What you think is global warming now is just things getting back to the way they were for a very long time and Mortals don't have much to do with it or it wouldn't be getting warmer on Mars too.

Felix said skeptically, "And your family of course told you it was getting warmer on Mars too?"

Trevor shook his head, "No I heard that on the NASA channel. But anyway the Ancient Englanders had burned off just about all old growth forest. So they prayed and looked around for something else to burn and found this black rock would burn and bingo! That lead to the Industrial Revolution!"

"Which lead to a lot of suffering." Felix pointed out.

"Which is why you are wearing such nice clothes and have so many of them and have a car and lots of books and a TV set and a MP player and a computer, (the thing which lead to me) and central heat and air and..."

"I get the point!"

Trevor smiled, "You grand, grand Mortals! Each generation of you suffers bravely and sometimes horribly so that the next may do a little better. Have Faith it goes somewhere. What Faith inspires Science eventually builds. Even thought the coal spewing poisonous mercury has made all sorts of endocrine and neurological problems including Autism and Hypothyroidism and Adrenal fatigue what is sometimes called Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, the Industrial Revolution were two disasters that lead to a Grand Solution. You yourselves build New Jerusalem and give the Carpenter His Kingdom. Every living thing in the Universe gets eternal life all the way around the Wheel of Time and it isn't because of us gods, it is because of you Mortals. But anyway. As I said two absolute unmitigated disasters may have lead to one glorious solution to both!" Trevor beamed, "Felix there is a strong chance I may have found a match up for Susan!"

Felix sat down rather suddenly on their couch and Pepe and Jalapeno joined him, licking his face.

Trevor sat down next to him so Felix had a dog on each side of him, a little g god to the right of him and the big God inside of him. Trevor explained, "DQ is HIV positive too! Claire usually wouldn't even be ethically allowed to let something like that out about a Patient but because I'm peer counseling him (if that is what you want to call what I am doing, it is more like peer keeping him), I had to be told! He matches her checklist jot per jot and as best I can tell she does his. Oh I know he has the extra added bug a boo of being seriously nuts but he's still a very likable guy when he isn't swinging his umbrella or threatening to and we are working on that! I know if he does pledge himself to her it will be for life! He won't make the mistake his host did of playing with the fire of prostitutes. We can be sure that mistake was corrected in him when his creator made him! Ironically Susan could buy him his villa in Spain. She ought to do that! Put enough land around him and other People and hire some Servants/Therapists to sort of humor him and handle him and he can be kept out of trouble. Plus she can afford to get him medical treatment!"

Felix nodded. He was feeling a little numb. It had happened so quickly!

Trevor frowned, "Of course I am assuming they are going to like one another."

Felix sighed, "She is very fat."

Trevor grinned, "That's one advantage in him thinking he's from the 14th* century. Fat was in fashion back then."

"Oh."

Trevor held up his hands. "I have my fingers crossed they like one another. And of course I do know what that means."

Felix smiled, "There is something you ought to know. It may relieve your anxiety a bit."

"What's that Boss?"

Felix chuckled."Susan absolutely adores, Man of La Mancha! And when she was in High School her class did a production of it. And Trevor, get this! She played Dulcinea!*"

Trevor laughed in glee at that! "I'd better hurry up and cross my fingers! My finger crossing is being answered before I can cross them!"

He smiled, "Now all I have to do is persuade DQ I found his Dulcenea. He didn't tell me to hunt for her, just help him fight the minions of evil! So here I go again, being Cupid and with him I wasn't even trying! I know I promised you I wasn't trying to match up DQ but Felix the circumstances have changed!' Grinning because he really knew Felix would not, Cupid got on his knees, put his hands together and pretend-pleaded, "Please don't fire me! Purty purty please!"

Felix laughed, "Well of course I won't fire you! I do realize how the circumstances suddenly has changed here. You really weren't Cupiding with him. You really were just peer counseling him and also acting just as Claire does with you as responsible Relative in proxy. But Susan has so few prospects we can't possibly refuse to overlook a one of them, especially one you already have a relationship with! If Claire gives you any guff about this I'll explain and run interference with her, 'Cupid.'" Felix smiled.

Trevor shook his head, "She already thinks I was looking for his Dulcinea . I didn't even tell her differently. What would have been the use? And good thing I didn't try to persuade her I wasn't trying to. Because now it looks like I did anyway!"

Trevor stared at the ceiling, "Uncle Mercury this feels like something you would do! I bet you are laughing your head off right now! Thank you for keeping things from being boring!"

But Uncle Mercury really had nothing to do with it. He was perched at that moment on the end of an Olive

Tree at that particular moment having a stare down with The Fate's striped tabby Cat who had climbed it. Since Hesperus was immortal and did not really need food the ornery Kitty had decided to spend the last two years up there. But the Fates were missing their Kitty and since Cupey wasn't home to help them, they had drafted Uncle Mercury to do something about him instead.

His little squirt's thankful little prayer wafted his way. He glanced down at the huge Mortalberg of New York City to proudly and lovingly pay attention to his kid even if the poor child could not sense him back. That distracted Uncle Mercury just long enough that he did not notice the branch he was perched on was breaking under his considerable weight.

A few seconds later, god of speed, immortal Kitty and Tree branch were eight feet lower. Kitty was being held in the arms of the Oldest Fate. The two younger ones who still looked old enough to be death warmed over were bending down and kissing Uncle Mercury repeatedly on the end of his nose for reasons that escape even the Author and gushing over him like he was Superman and he had just saved the entire Planet!.

Uncle Mercury much like his son in the bar after the fight just lay there and let himself be fussed over. Old or not they were females of his own species! And they were paying attention to him!

Susan sat at the same desk in Felix's office she had sat at before. The man who thought he was Cupid sat where he had sat before. Only this time she had the funny feeling it was more like he was assessing her mental state. He just sat there with his gentle eyes staring at her, eyes that seemed both at the same time young as a small Child's and as old as Time. For some reason it didn't make her as nervous as it would have usually, as if his kind had the right to watch her kind. Finally he said, "I may have found a match up for you. But it depends on you accepting him more than it does the other way around."

She laughed, "You have got to be kidding! I know you following my ground rules. You didn't tell him about my money. And you are upfront about the fact I am very sick and overweight. How could any possible match up depend on my opinion of him?" Then she frowned, "Unless we are really scraping the bottom of the barrel here!"

Trevor shook his head, "Oh no! I wouldn't do that to you. You deserve the best Reality Space can offer. After all what happened to you was not your fault. I doubt even the weight is your fault. Despite the self righteousness of this age most severe obesity has medical causes. But that's it right there of course. Rather Folks realize it or not they reject Fat Folks for the same reason many Animals reject Ill Members of their species. So that's another thing working against you. But I don't have to point that out. No I actually found you someone, who with a little work and management might have some real potential. He's very intelligent. He's kind. He respects Women as if he came from the age of chivalry. He is very lonely and desperately wants to settle down with just one Woman who would be his true love, his Dulcinea. But the problem is you found me hard to take and I just know I really am Cupid. This fellow really does have delusions. And at least to others he has a nasty habit of hitting or threatening to hit them with his umbrella when things don't go his way. We are working on that. By that I mean my Therapist, Claire Bear and myself. She sort of has me peer counseling him but what I am really doing is going way beyond that. But then what she does for me goes way beyond what most Therapists do too. If you are given a lot you kind of have to give a lot back eventually. It is only fair. But someone like you might actually be able to help him curb his umbrella habit better than the Shrink who got him locked up for three days, and another Male can." Cupid smiled, "Overweight or not you are going to look a whole lot prettier to him than I do!"

She stared at him, "Your Therapist is named, 'Claire Bear'?"

Trevor laughed, "She's, Dr. Claire McCrae, the one who writes the relationship advice column in the paper. Her Boss thought it would be cute to assign a Patient who 'thinks he's Cupid' and who is trying to unite couples to a Psychiatrist who prefers to work as a Therapist specializing in doing exactly the same thing! His idea of a little joke. It's kind of backfired on him though." Trevor chuckled. "We've started to work together on occasion. Claire has started helping me make my matches figuring when I get to one hundred something interesting is going to happen, which of course is true. I'll be able to go back home, though at this point I'm not so sure I want to any more. Sometimes I want to go home desperately and sometimes I think to myself I like it here! I've gotten so good at matching couples manually now without my magic that, since I have more time to devote to it than she does, she's actually referred a few People to me when they came to her for help and she felt they would need more help than she had time to give them! Oh she warns them that they are to ask me why I am her Patient too before preceding since she isn't ethically allowed to tell them why that is. And the deal with her is when she refers someone to me is I have tell them why I am her Patient right way if they neglect to ask. I don't mind. And I've never had anyone back out once I told them I'm Cupid, maybe because I work for free. And I never once failed to find someone a match, considering that I am still trying with a couple of them. If you don't ever give up it doesn't count as a failure! But ten of my beads came to me from her direct referrals and twenty-four others I sort of stole off of her from People who came to her sessions looking for true love and I cornered them after wards and helped them find it. As I said when I was first released from across the street and she was making it a requirement that I had to attend her singles group, 'fish in a barrel.'"

Susan said, "amazing! She seems to think you are a Cupid even if you aren't the Cupid."

Trevor shrugged.

"So you said this potential match up for me is delusional? Who does he think he is? Zeus?"

Trevor laughed. "I hope not! My Grandfather would be way too old for you and he's around the bend in ways that have nothing to do with him being delusional. He thinks he's Zeus, yes. But he is Zeus. The problem is he should not have chained a poor little Mortal to a rock and had Vultures eat his ever regenerating liver for a hundred years for merely figuring out how to make a campfire from watching my Uncle Mercury make one! Up to then he'd been so kind and nice and sane except for intermittent sudden rages that went away as quickly as they came. But when we realized he'd been doing that to this poor Prometheus fellow we realized suddenly we had a big problem on our hands! No this fellow doesn't think he's my Grandfather. Thank the Fates who are still functioning perfectly for that! He thinks he's Don Quixote!"

Susan started laughing, "That was one of my favorite books!"

Trevor started laughing too. "My little old ginger cookie baking neighbors have been working overtime!"

She stared at him questioningly.

He explained "Our neighbors across their pond are, The Fates. They are three little old lady goddesses who knit every Mortal's life thread into a pattern and us god's too. Except when a Mortal's threads reaches a certain length, whatever it is supposed to be according to whatever thing it is they are knitting and I am not even sure they know, they take out their scissors and, SNIP." Trevor made a slicing movement with his hand. "They bake great ginger cookies and I used to water their rose bushes for them so they would give me plates full of them and milk from their immortal Nanny Goat, Brownie. And they would pick me up and hug me and kiss me and I was kind of a strange little boy. I loved being hugged and kissed by these three old crones. Didn't mind it a bit!" Trevor smiled, "I love women of all ages and sizes and types as long as they are some kind of Human, Nymphs too. I have a problem with Centaurs but its not bigotry like I've been accused. I am just afraid of being trampled."

Susan laughed. "I guess the reason you can run around loose is all of this is in your past. You see the current world around you just as everyone else sees it."

Trevor nodded and gave Susan as rueful grin. "That is what Claire tells People to defend me to them. But you picked up on it right away without her help."

"So this Don Quixote is the same?"

Trevor shook his head, "I had no problems whatsoever adjusting to 21st century New York that any Greek Emigrant would not have had, fewer actually because I am very intelligent and being over three thousand years one learns how to learn and adapt to ever changing Mortal culture. We are where the legend of Rip Van Winkle comes from. We gods close our eyes for a few years for a nice little nap and the entire scene down below has changed! Trevor laughed. "So Claire just had to show me where the best Greek and Italian restaurants were, where the best laundromat in the area was. Or Felix did. Ordinary stuff like that. I needed help learning to use a computer and that was what the public library was for. I had them figured out in a few days calmly and with no problems. Like People they are what they are and can't help it they aren't anything more than what they are. They will evolve into more and a darn sight faster than any kind of Human will. In the meantime I can be patient. In a couple of hundred years they won't be so frustrating. But anyway DQ. (That is what we call him for short), is having a whole lot more adjustment problems than I did. You can help them with those too a whole lot more than we can. In many ways he is a fixer upper but there is quality there. I can see it! Claire sees it too. Even Dr Greeley sees it because that he would let him out with his violent tendencies is amazing, a real Mortal miracle! He isn't even happy that I'm out and I've never even glared at anyone."

Susan considered.

Trevor pleaded,"Give him a chance! Give yourself a chance. This really was the Fates! You said you loved the book. Felix said you actually played Dulcinea in a high school production of Man of la Mancha. This couldn't be any more perfect unless you bought him a villa in Spain!

Susan's eyes brightened. She laughed a little bitterly. "Trevor, I already own a villa in Spain!"

Cupid stared at her, "You do? I almost exclaimed, 'you're kidding! But I don't think you are silly enough to kid me that way, not now, not about this!"

She smiled as if her possession was making the decision for her. "I'm not kidding. I do own a villa in Spain. I bought it when I first was told I was HIV positive to comfort myself. It's beautiful, Trevor! But it wasn't as comforting as I thought it would be. Because I have no one to share it with. I had been avoiding People for years because of the rape and because of my weight and how I had been teased about it all my life. And then that I knew I was dieing I realized that had been the wrong way to live my life. I need People especially a Mate to share my sorrow with, and I have no one. I have an absolutely beautiful place to die and fifteen billion dollars to leave to charity and that is all I have."

Trevor said, "Well if you want him you can have a Don Quixote to go with your Spanish Villa."

Her face clouded over, "I don't mind a bit that he thinks he's Don Quixote. I love it actually. But it's not enough to base a long term relationship on. What is HE like, Trevor, as a Person? As a Man? Is he gentle? I was raped remember? Will he understand why on my wedding night (because I was a Virgin before that) I am going to be very anxious and not enjoy it? It will be enough just that I get through it and for him I will get though it but it will be out of love for him not passion. Any passion, if there ever will even be any passion, will come only with as great deal of time!"

Trevor swallowed, "I admit I don't know. I think this is going to take some really intense and heavy pre-couple relationship counseling! For one thing there is a possibility that he thinks he has to love you chase from afar as the song goes. I haven't even discussed the possibility of him actually settling down with his Dulcinea. But I will work on him and you know I can be very persuasive! Because there is at least a chance now of happiness for both of you. He'd live longer if he could get medical care which you can afford to get for him, and the further away he is from across the street the less likely he is to end up locked away there forever, and you, you may be the only one besides myself who could possibly see any value to him thinking himself Don Quixote!"

She nodded, "OK. How do I meet him?"

Trevor sighed, "My druthers would be the two of you go for a carriage ride in the park. But number one I'm strapped for cash right now. I've been having to support DQ too the last two weeks not just myself. Number two, Claire said 'absolutely not!' Apparently she wants it done like a counseling session with a Psychotic Patient (which he is), with two Orderlies just outside the door in case something goes wrong and both her and Dr Greeley there to give both a Male and a Female's opinion, guidance and viewpoint to both parties. At least I do get to be there. I insisted and I thought Claire was going to say, 'No,' but instead she said, "Of course for the first combined session because you were their go between." Then I thought Dr. Greeley would say, 'no' and Claire would have to come to my defense but he didn't say anything at all. So I at least get to be there when you two meet for the first time!" Cupid smiled. But then he frowned again. "But after that I won't be invited to any more of your sessions. You will be having more than one of them, however many Claire and Dr Greeley think are necessary before the two of you are allowed to solo. And there is more. You each have to have at least one session by yourself with either Claire or Dr Greeley before you get to see each other at all, however many they deem is necessary." Cupid sighed, "I don't know what the world is coming to, Susan but I am not sure I like it! Still. It will cut down on the danger I suppose. I saw NO sign whats DQ would harm a Woman. But after what you went through, why take chances?"

Susan giggled, "After what I went through maybe they are concerned I might hurt him!"

Cupid nodded, "I wasn't going to bring it up, but yes that was pointed out to me! That you might take your anger and your fear out at what was done to you on the innocent Lunatic and that it could led to all sorts of horrible consequences for both of you but especially for him as no one would believe he was the innocent one his being male and crazy. Between Normals and Crazies, court systems will of course believe that the Normals have the correct version of the truth, first." Cupid sighed, "So I guess all these safety precautions do make a certain amount of common sense. It is just sooooo.,,,'

"Clinical." Susan finished for him. But Trevor I am just grateful I am getting any chance at all for love! With what I am and what has happened to me, it is truly a miracle!" She got up from her side of the desk, went over to Trevor's side and kissed him on the cheek! "Maybe you really are the love god after all!"

With that she danced out with more lightness of being than Trevor had ever seen her show before. He put his right palm up to his cheek which felt strangely warm. He smiled.

Cupid and Don Quixote walked out from the convenience store up the street from Tres Equis each holding the hugest Slurpee possible to purchase. "Sancho Panza" explained the modern custom of slurping. "The thing is to slurp them as loudly as you can, DQ and then belch the same way. But only when a Lady is not present, or at least a Lady such as my Claire Bear who lacks a sufficiently sophisticated sense of humor to appreciate such low brow stuff."

DQ tried it and proved himself a natural Slurper.

"Very good my lord!" the love god exclaimed, "I'll have you ready for the Olympic's Slurp and Burp Free Style in no time at tall!"

DQ's eyes grew wide, "There is such a contest?

Cupid laughed, "No DQ I am only kidding!"

DQ chuckled and did his best to slurp and burp even louder which disproved Claire's belief that Trevor's sense of humor and playfulness was a rare thing among Delusionals. (Living Beings often forget to read the 'instruction books' that the 'Experts' so carefully write out for them)! They walked along beside one another in friendly silence for some minutes headed back to the bar and enjoying their treat.

Finally 'Sancho Panza' said, "Don Quixote I know it is my duty as your squire to help you fight evil. And the World today is full of evil. So much evil! A lot of it can be fought just by going on the Net and alerting People to stuff. For instance that brain cell killing glutamate is allowed by the FDA to hide in foods under 40 different names as well as in vaccinations and that it can cause some Folks to go into rage attacks as well as have other severe health problems, that one should not push trash down by hand in a public trashcans because it might contain contaminated hypodermic needles left there by junkies, that beer and soda can plastic loopy things can trap Birds, and that Yoplait yogurt cups can trap all sorts of Animal's heads when they get thrown out in the trash due to their irresponsible shape which is a psychological ploy to make People subconsciously think eating that stuff will make them skinny. The neck of the cup is smaller than the body but wide enough to allow Animal's heads to enter but not get out again, etc. So there are other ways to fight evil too, DQ that do not involve taking an umbrella or a sword and bashing People over the head. For instance the kind of evil that I mentioned to Lita; loneliness. It is indeed a great evil! The worst of them all! I have fought it all my life and there is so much more of this evil to be fought. Every generation has more of it to fight."

DQ nodded, "It is indeed a great evil! I feel this very intensely that you are right! Something deep inside of me is crying out right now that you are soooo in the light of righteousness here! So much for your madness, Sancho Panza!"

Cupid nodded, "I know a Girl, an intelligent young Woman. She is plump and beautiful, but so very lonely right now! She is your Dulcinea and she is pining for her Don Quixote! I could bring the two of you together."

He saw the skeptical look in DQ's eyes.

"I really can!"

DQ stared at the sidewalk and shook his head, "My poor, poor mad Sancho! You still think you are Cupid! There really is no.."

Cupid interrupted him. "See? Here is her picture! She is real, Don Quixote! She is not some hallucination of mine. Even Claire admits I do not hallucinate. The beads she thinks I am moving myself and confabulating that I remember seeing them move. But that is not the same thing as hallucinating according to her. There is some nitpicking difference that involves the fact I am not having my senses scrambled in real time but again according to her, just my memories. But sigh...can you just humor me enough here to make yourself and your Dulcinea very happy? Oh by the way she prefers to be called Susan. But she IS you Dulcinea , Don Quixote! At least look at her picture!"

Don Quixote looked at the photograph of Susan. He whistled appreciatively, "She is beautiful, Sancho! I would indeed like to meet her!"

Inwardly Cupid breathed a sigh of relief. "I shall arrange it then my Master!"

At their next counseling session Cupid casually mentioned to Claire, "Guess what! I think Don Quixote and Susan ought to get together. After all Susan is HIV positive too. Or did I tell you that?"

Cupid knew of course that he had not and he also knew Claire would be so shocked by that revelation to then object to his Cupiding DQ. He was right. She just sighed. "I guess you might as well! I know you were supposed to find a match-up for Susan, he probably would like her and it wouldn't hurt to bring her in as an Allie to try and rein in some of DQ's less socially acceptable behavior."

Explaining the situation to Dr Greeley was much harder. Trevor sat across from the uptight Shrink's desk and swallowed the lump of fear in his throat, very much aware Hector was just outside the door and could be ordered at any moment to take him into confinement. "But Dr Greeley I didn't set out to, really I didn't! I just wanted to help him stay out of the hospital! Really that was all. This just sort of just happened. Susan is HIV positive too and Felix wanted me to Cupid her and she wanted me to Cupid her so there wasn't anything unethical about that part of it at all! I was asked to give my services! And while DQ never actually asked me to find her his Dulcinea when I told him I had but her real name was, 'Susan' he sure didn't fight it! He isn't even trying to call her 'Dulcinea, ' I don't know why but he hasn't even tried to. Maybe he's not as out of touch with reality as we think. At least not, 'when the wind is southerly.'"

Dr Greeley was definitely not happy with him!

Trevor continued defending himself, "Sir, they both are HIV positive. They are both lonely and loneliness is itself is a kind of mental illness or can lead to it. Loneliness for his dead family is what set the original Robert Cunningham over the edge. So this can only be good for him. Don't you think, sir? And there is another factor. Susan is VERY well off and last I knew the total, DQ had all of sixty five bucks and fifty three cents left. He certainly can't afford the expensive medications and nutritional supplements he needs that would prolong his life by more than a decade or so. But Susan can! If she marries him that will save his life. How insane an act is that sir? I may have just saved his life!"

At that Dr Greeley's face softened. "Now that is a point! Trevor how do you keep doing it? Your crazy schemes keep ending up helping People when such irresponsible behavior and caviler attitudes towards life should by all logic and reason lead to disaster!"

Trevor shrugged, "I don't know Sir. The luck of the Greeks perhaps?"

Dr Greeley really smiled at that! "I am so glad you didn't say, 'the luck of the gods!"

Trevor smiled, "Last time I checked my home was indeed in Greece. I feel Greek! I love Greek food! I love Greek dancing! I speak every dialect of Greek there ever was and a few not developed yet since my Father, Mars saw no reason to wait teaching them to me. I would say I am definitely Greek sir and grand luck is not the sole possession of merely those Greeks who live atop my Mountain!"

Dr Greeley actually started laughing. "Oh Trevor despite your shaky grasp of reality you landed on your feet again! I will do what is necessary to make this possible pairing as safe and successful as possible. But you owe me one, Mental Patient! You had better be on time for your sessions with Claire from now on, no more of your protest lateness! It's not her fault you got yourself in legal trouble and I could have assigned some ugly Male Therapist to you. I didn't! I sensed she was the one who could help you and you've even admitted to me in the past I was right about that and thanked me. Got that, 'Cupid?'"

Cupid nodded. "Yes Sir! Can I go now?"

Dr Greeley nodded and pointed at the door.

Trevor cheerfully got up, went through the door and tipped an imaginary hat at Hector, "See you later, Alligator. You don't get to drag me anywhere today! This god's still gonna live wild and free!"

Cupid and Susan have a little Talk

As they crossed the street towards Sachs-Gordon Trevor counseled Susan on how to be counseled by Dr Claire McCrae. "I've been in the briar patch of seeing Claire for a little over five years now." The fallen love god said cheerfully. "I know how to push all her buttons, how to evade all her crazy psychobablish tricks to trip me up. After all that time I'm still firmly Cupid but she's come around a bit to my side, actually sending Folks to me for matching and assisting me in many other ways that are more in line to keeping me Cupid than making me not be Cupid." The twinkle in his eye could have powered half of New York City for a year! "So listen up, Grasshopper! I can tell you how to ace this!"

Susan eyed him skeptically and laughed nervously. "I am to take advice from a Lunatic as to how to handle a Therapist and a Psychiatrist?"

Trevor shrugged. His eyes were still twinkling as bright as the sky over Bethlehem before electric lighting. "If I really am a Lunatic, than yes. But you have to admit I've been in her hot seat enough to know as no one else possibly can what it's like. So I certainly have good advice to give!"

Susan shrugged. "Reluctantly I have to agree you sort of have a point. Except that the reason you sit there is for her to cure you and you've managed to keep her from doing that. So your being able to handle her so well is actually kind of tragic! But alright. I'm listening. Why not? What have I got to lose by at least listening to you?"

Trevor said, "Ah, Grasshopper. First off she needs to think she is very, very wise. And sometimes she really is. So always nod politely and compliment her wisdom even if you are thinking to yourself, "this came out of the rear end of a Male Cow after he fed very well! I don't even take my own advice concerning this but that is because I am usually confronting her in a room full of lonely Singles who need to hear the real truth. But you are going to be alone with her and she needs to think you are just like her in thought and anticipated action so she trusts you to meet DQ. You sort of have to do what I did the last week of my confinement over here." Trevor pointed at the building they were entering. "The Orderlies and even some of the Doctors and the Nurses now call it, "pulling a Cupid.' You have to make her think you believe just as she believes even if you know for a solid fact she's spouting Horse hooey!"

Susan nodded, "In other words 'the Shrink is always right even when the Shrink is wrong.'"

Trevor laughed and nodded, "Well put, Grasshopper!"

She nodded and then asked playfully. "But what if I really agree with her?"

Trevor pretended to swallow in mock fear. "Then I'm in trouble and maybe half of the rest of the gods on Olympus!"

Susan's Counseling Session

Claire gazed at Susan and smiled warmly. "First off I am going to as, what did Trevor tell you to say and not say?"

Susan laughed. "You two know each other a little too well!"

"Five years!"

Susan nodded, "And he told me he is just as much Cupid as when you started so I need to listen to him on how to handle you!"

Claire sighed. "I figured he would say something like that. What other wise advice came from the Lunatic section?"

"That I should pretend to agree with you even if I don't."

Claire frowned and said gently. "Which limits my ability to help you. You do know that?"

Susan nodded. "I do. I wasn't going to follow it exactly. I wasn't exactly going to get in a knock down drag it to the back alley argument with you if we disagreed. But I wasn't going to be completely dishonest either like he recommended. Maybe if we disagree on something we can come to some kind of a compromise?"

Claire nodded, "Now that is the mentally healthy and mature approach. You are way ahead of him! Though he has made some progress. But enough about him. I should not be talking about him anyway. I just needed to know how he was trying to sabotage what I was trying to do here with you. Concerning this proposed matchup with DQ: Are you really for this, really? Or is this just what everybody else thinks you ought to do and you are going along with it because its too much trouble to back out?"

Susan shook her head. "Oh no! I do want to meet him! I'm lonely ' 'Claire Bear!' She smiled. "Trevor told me that too; that he called you Claire Bear and that is one part of his example I will follow. "I do want to meet up with this fellow. He sounds fascinating and the reason he went mad. That touches my heart. He is as Trevor said, 'a fixer upper' but I do believe he's fixable in the sense we can make each other happy. I doubt I can stop him from thinking he is Don Quixotic if after five years you've made no progress with Trevor concerning his Cupid fixation!"

Claire nodded. "But there is the opposite possibility. What if all or part of your attraction to him is that? That he is a charming, fascinating mysterious Madman? That could come crashing down at any time, Susan. Often these Secondary Personas collapse really quickly back into the first persona when their circumstances change and/or time to recover has occurred. Cupid is almost an anomaly that he's lasted five years without even a hint of the primary showing. What if you wake up beside DQ one morning and the magic is gone? He suddenly proclaims with disgust that he is not Don Quixote any more and, 'How could he ever have thought he was?' and, 'What is he doing in a villa in Spain and he wants to go back to Brooklyn and take up being a House Painter again like any Sane Man ought to?"

Susan swallowed, "That would break my heart again. I admit it. But I would have known love and romance and adventure for a little while at least. While if I don't try this I will never have had it at all! I'm going to die anyway. So is he. I am living on borrowed time due to drugs, Dr Claire Bear! He is due to an incredibly strong immune system. But maybe any love we develop can even survive his returning to reality. But if it doesn't, it isn't that fairy tales don't come true. Sometimes they do. But it is just that when Disney isn't involved they often have tragic endings."

Claire nodded. "Wisely put. As Hans Christian Anderson originally wrote it the Little Mermaid did not get her Mortal. She lost everything instead trying to get him."

Susan nodded, "I AM going to lose everything unless your own favorite Lunatic is right and there are keeps on that mountain on Olympus and hovering over Mount Sinai built in the Future to fulfill ancient Religions and already there because of circling Space/Time!"

Claire swallowed in sympathy and nodded.

Susan got a far away look, "Wouldn't it be wonderful if he were right? What if he isn't mad? What if he really is Cupid and that strange Carpenter from the Middle East really is or became God and the Supernatural is there because Science in the Future decided it really did need to be there because we really do need and deserve to live forever and saw to it that it was made so just as Trevor is so cheerfully certain!"

Claire shrugged helplessly. "There are nights I wonder about that too! Because unlike other demented Individuals I've had to work with his psychosis is logically thought out and he functions not only competently but hyper-competently. And he's happy and beneficial, and People like him despite his strangeness and there are Children walking the Earth who would not even exist if he hadn't matched their Parents up."

Susan nodded, "Claire from my viewpoint I desperately need there to be an Afterlife! And what is Science trying to do?"

Claire nodded and repeated. "And what is Science trying to do?"

They both smiled at each other with a mixture of hope and fear of the Unknown!

Then Claire rerouted the conversation. "Alright. Reiterating what we've discussed. You are sure this is your own desire. It is not just what others want for you. You are aware it might not last. You are aware he might come back to reality and your relationship which is based on a false Persona might not survive that, but it might. You are also very aware you are going to die and are trying to find a way to cope with that and are having more success with that talking to another Patient of mine, than me!" Claire sighed and said thoughtfully, "That is how religions get started I guess: By clever Lunatics with great social skills. But he could be right! Maybe Scientists and Clever Geeks in the Future do put foundations under the Castles in the Air that Psychotics and the Divine Mad Dreamers build!'

Susan smiled. "And Psychiatrists collect the rent!"

Claire laughed, "I've heard variations of that before. But you slipped it in the conversation in a practical form and your timing was Professional Comedian perfect! Anyway on to the rest of what I'm being paid here for. I strongly advice that your first few meeting with him when you solo be in very public places. And honestly Susan, this isn't just for your protection. With your tragic history with Men this is as much for his protection if not more so than yours. While he has been violent with Men he has no history of physical assaults against Women, just loving too many of them in unwise ways. But he obviously is experienced with Women physically and won't be used to someone like you who has NO experience. If he comes on as strong as he is accustomed to you could misinterpret that as another rape situation even though he innocently thought you were willing and you could overreact and because of his mental health diagnoses, to the Police and in the court room..."

Susan interrupted, "Trevor already discussed this with me too. I quite agree!"

Claire threw up her hands in mock exasperation though some of it wasn't mock. "I didn't really need to get a degree or see you today! I just should have figured out how to go crazy or 'colorful not crazy' as Trevor claims he is and/or just refer all my Patients to him for relationship advice! Alright. This is covered too. She stared at the ceiling, "Thank you up there on Mount Olympus! Now back to reality!" She smiled. "Can you tell I really need a vacation away from Trevor?"

Susan laughed and nodded.

"So you see him the first few times at a nice restaurant or a picnic in Central Park on a crowded Sunday. You have the advantage of living in the most populated part of the United States. If you stay in this area I don't even know how you possibly could find yourself alone with him unless he talks you into going to a hotel which according to Trevor (and I know he is reality oriented here), the Man cannot afford."

Susan nodded, "I made the mistake of going off camping with the monster who raped me!"

Claire nodded. Her eyes misted over with sympathy. "Do you want to talk about that?"

Susan shrugged, "I've had rape counseling before, Claire Bear. I want to go on to the Future now, towards a normal relationship if what I am planning to do can be called normal. It isn't of course. But it will have at least some elements of fun to it at first before we get really sick and what happened to me before, was not. I want some fun!"

Claire nodded. "You do seem to have a good grasp of what you are getting into and a real sincere desire to do it. It isn't being pushed on you by others, especially by my over eager Patient who is absolutely sure he wins an all expenses paid trip to Olympus if he can just get a few more couples matched!"

Susan laughed, "what is going to happen to him when he gets those matches and he doesn't go?"

Claire shook her head, very worried. "I'm planning on taking him to Disney World along with any of his Friends I can persuade to take off from work. His other Shrink, Dr Benjamin Leo and some of his Star Trek Club would love to go, and Folks from his Improv group. Plus some of the couples he has matched up. If I can manage it he will have plenty of Folks there to reassure him that in a way he is indeed Cupid and he really needs to just keep doing what he does so well! He is needed actually, Susan. You are an example of this. Like his idea about Christ getting the position of God because Someone just had to have it; if there is a social niche of 'Cosmic Match Maker' no one is more qualified to fill it than Trevor!" Claire smiled. "So maybe the Universe will relent and make him Cupid after all! I'll remind him of that and have everyone else do so too until we manage to drive him crazy again!"

Susan laughed.

Then Claire said grimly, "and if I lose my job here because I chose to help a Patient stay delusional instead of helping him back to reality, then so be it! The book I am writing about him will keep me fixed for life. And you know? I thought when they just about fired me from here because of my position against over medicating I wasn't going to ever work here as a Doctor again and that was really bothering me because I really love this area and the Patients here! Instead they had to rehire me because of the publicity this case bought me. I have more Patients than ever now and I am doing what I wanted to do in the first place listening to them not just prescribing them medication though I do that too despite the myth I don't, (when I deem it helps. And often it does). I don't make as much money directly from going just the drug route. But this book I am writing about him, Susan! And it's alright to talk about it because he figured out I was writing one about him. He's writing one about me too to be published concurrently and I have a strong feeling we are going to make each other rich!"

Susan smiled. "You are a good Friend to him, Claire Bear. Not just one of his Doctors. That is good to know!"

Claire nodded, "And I have broken one of the sacred rules of being a Therapist. I've talked about another Patient to another Patient. But I guess it hardly matters. He goes on You Tube and makes videos proclaiming himself to be Cupid in the name of getting more business into his bar. He's crazy like a Fox but nevertheless, still crazy. But he hasn't kept his condition secret. So how can I even if I wanted to? OK. Our time is up. I deem you mentally stable enough to try and make this work with DQ. Now let us hope that my Boss finds DQ mentally stable enough to make it work with you, Susan. That's a big if!"

She frowned,"Your Boss does know already he thinks he's Don Quixote and that in itself won't stop this?

Claire nodded. "He does definitely know your potential love interest thinks he is the Man from La Mancha. He wasn't too happy when he found out my Patient who thinks he's Cupid managed to find a Patient who thinks he's Don Quixote his Dulcinea ! But the fact you can afford to get him the medical care he needs to prolong his life; that won him over to the idea however reluctantly. So he won't let DQ's delusion alone be a stopper. It will depend on 'can he love his Dulcinea closeup and personal not just 'chase from afar?' And if so, can he do that properly?"

DQ's Counseling Session

As Cupid and Claire waited nervously in the waiting room Dr Greeley came out from counseling DQ, all smiles."Folks I don't think we have anything to worry about. The book, Don Quixote doesn't go into any detail about how to treat Women other than to love them, "chase from afar." So I was quite concerned the Persona of DQ wouldn't even have instructions as to what to do with a real flesh and blood Woman in his arms. I was expecting to have to give him Sex and Relationship Ed 101 and very concerned he would not listen to me. But it turns out he's had a very good education in that area!"

Most Spock like Claire's eyebrows went up,

Milton smiled, "He has read all the way through the Bible AND the Karma Sutra. Believe me between the two of those...!

Claire laughed, "Yup! I would think just, the Karma sutra..."

Trevor also laughed, "I would think just, the Song of Solomon!"

Dr. Greeley looked at Trevor with startled respect. "Ah Mr. Pierce. So your knowledge of religion isn't limited to ancient Classical Greece!"

Trevor smiled, "Even beyond Olympus the planetary god population is pretty small, sir. So we don't fight. Just our Followers fight. And when you say 'gods' and 'God,' you are talking about single celled Plankton versus a multicellular Blue Whale. Same seventh dimension as Quantum Physics is going to call it, same Ocean of Immortality. But a completely different and much higher level of Evolution. Understand?"

Dr Greeley gave him another startled look and got the conversation back on track. "Oh but concerning DQ there is more. The book he is based on doesn't go into much detail how to treat a Woman so apparently Robert Cunningham borrowed some of Don Juan's template for his Don Quixote Persona! So he will be gentle and patient with Susan's most understandable terror beyond what a normal Man could possibly be! For instance because of the circumstances definitely it is good that he believes they must do things the old fashioned way and not actually have sex until after marriage because that will give them a chance to forge a bond that will be based not on just sex, which may always be the weakest link in their relationship if things don't go well there."

Trevor added, "And to give you guys your due I also know another good thing because yes I did ask her. Susan is willing to go for professional help if after a time they can't work out her anxiety in that area on their own."

Dr. Greeley laughed. "When the Psychos and the Shrinks agree I think we have a winner here. So! If I were a raped female Virgin with fantasies of being Dulcenea who had a chance to have legitimate sex for the first time in my life in a real Spanish villa, I would pick DQ myself!"

Claire smiled, "So the next stage is to bring the two of them together in a counseling session.

Trevor frowned.

Claire nodded at her Patient and said with firm gentleness. "Oh I know Trevor. You don't think doing it this way is romantic. It's not 'passion.' Two potential Lovers meeting for the first time in a Psychiatrist's office; It's not the way you did it" (she made quote marks with her fingers) "for thousands of years.' But honestly humoring you, that is why your family sent you down here, now isn't it? To learn new and better ways of matching Couples up. So I am sure even though we are the ones being the Cupids now, or Co-Cupids you will still have false memories of seeing another bead slide, (really done by yourself in a fugue state). You will get credit from your 'family' for this match up because it was you who made the connection that they would be right for each other and amazingly and amusingly it was using my checklist method."

Dr. Greeley chuckled.

Trevor protested, "I had the usual gut sensation about it too!'

Claire eyed him professionally, "Oh yeah? But that gut sensation only came after you were told by me DQ was HIV positive too."

Trevor pointed out, "I never said my gut sensations were all just mojo, Claire Bear. Some of it is just my gut's normal intelligence that even Humans 1.0 have to some extent. You know better even than I do since you are a Doctor and I am only a god that the gut is lined with the same kind of neurons the brain has. It is literally a second brain. We gods use ours more than Humans 1.0 do because it was easier for the Building Mortals to increase our intelligence and mental powers by adding more brain cells down there, than in our skulls without making us look like pulp Sci Fi Aliens and making live births impossible. So back on Olympus instead of here in my fallen state, my gut brain would actually be my bigger, main thinking organ."

Claire smiled serenely, "So it was your gut that used my check list?"

Dr Greeley had to bite his lip to keep from laughing right out loud at a Patient who was not in the mood to be laughed at. Because for once Trevor didn't have a clever comeback! He was just glaring at his 'Claire Bear! ' To comfort him he said, " We have managed to forge a bridge of mutual cooperation that is actually helping People across the usually uncrossable voids of philosophy, religion, and even mental health! Not bad considering when I first met you Mr. Pierce I didn't have many hopes for you beyond that the right medication might calm you down enough that you might start enjoying arts and crafts in whatever long term facility we sent you to after your 90 day observation period with us was over instead of pacing restlessly up and down the hallway like a caged Tiger!"

Trevor beamed ear to ear. He had just won long term struggle. And he knew it!

And up on a certain mountain in Greece others noticed that too. "The Kid was getting better!"

Later Dr Greeley took Claire aside and asked her, "When did Mr. Pierce start calling us, 'Humans 1.0?'"

Claire explained. "He only does that part of the time when he's discussing us in public. He started doing that when I asked him to quit calling us 'Mortals' because it makes him seem strange."

Dr. Greeley blinked, "And calling us Humans 1.0 doesn't?"

Claire shrugged and smiled at her Boss. "He's a work in progress, Milton!"

DQ and Susan Meet

They sat in a circle in the group therapy room. DQ and Susan sat across from one another staring with honest and unabashed curiosity at each other. Claire and Trevor also sat across from one another. After all they were used to that position. Dr Greeley sat off to the side observing everybody. He studied Trevor and the concerned, gentle, loving expression on his face. It was not the expression of a disturbed and and hurting Patient. It was the expression of a fellow Therapist. Man! Trevor Pierce was good at what he did and he was sincerely concerned about the "Clients" he matched up even if his reasons for doing so sprung from severe and intractable delusion!

Susan considered the Man before her. He did not look 'mad.' There was no psychotic glow in his eyes. He was neatly if somewhat archaicly dressed. There was an air of the foreign and the exotic about him which was amazing because Trevor had told her the original Personality was really a House Painter from Brooklyn! The foreign air was completely part of his own self creation! The lack of psychotic glow was of course because of the nature of his illness. He had what Trevor was supposed to have, not Schizophrenia. He had Dissociative Identity Disorder, what used to be called Multiple Personality Disorder but the name was changed because Hollywood and many other People, (many who should know better) keep getting it mixed up with Schizophrenia. DID's can be perfectly competent, even hyper-competent. Unlike Cupid and DQ most don't pick secondary Personas that are so weird and unusual they stick out like a sore thumb. So most pass for normal People and there more of them walking among us than is realized. Like many high functioning Autists some are campaigning for neurodiversity acceptance claiming in many cases no trauma at all caused them to have more than one Personality. Instead they were were born that way or just have a talent for forming and/or harboring more than one Operating System and that God made them that way on purpose and they shouldn't even be called sick and the fact so many of them function so well proves their point!

DQ was handsome, healthy looking, well dressed, carefully shaved, neat, and clean. He had a sufficient number of muscles due to being a Painter not to look like a Wimp but he certainly did not look unpleasantly muscle bound.

Susan was overweight but to someone who thought he was from an earlier age that was not a liability. But more normalcy lurked inside of DQ there than anyone in the room realized. However still, he liked what he saw!

Cupid could tell. His eyes sparkled like the old world matchmaker that he was, "You like?" He questioned, his head swinging back and forth between both of them.

It was a good sign neither wanted to take their eyes off the other! Both smiled a satisfied smile and nodded.

Of course Claire and Doctor Greeley could read that just as easily as their "alleged" fallen love god. They smiled at one another too and the unspoken message between them was, "Amazing! This is going to work!"

Don Quixote didn't waste any time. He got up and went over to Susan and took her hand and kissed it. He said dashingly, "It was nice of 'Cupid' and all his putios to bring us together. But now my dear away from these Wizardesses and Wizards however well meaning they may be, we must go on a real date!

Susan swallowed a little frightened, but she nodded in agreement. Chills were going up and down her spine!

Don Quixote continued with gallant gentleness. "Nothing too stressful my dear. I do not hold with these magic lanterns as first dates. Who can talk while watching fights and chases? Who can learn one another's deepest desires and needs over a Dolby sound system? And since some louts I cannot even remember stole my gold I cannot even treat you to a decent meal in one of the many fine eating establishments around here. My purse is too thin and I cannot keep depending on the charity of my poor mad Sancho however lovingly he gives it. So until I manage to contact my villa in Spain I will have to treat you to a picnic in Central park and a walk there afterward. Will that be enough for you my dear?"

Her eyes were tearing over, "Oh my! That would be perfect! I was so afraid you would try to impress me with money and the thing is there is something you don't know about me, something good but that will wait for later. But it boils down to nothing you could do in the way of spending money could ever impress me! The way to impress me is doing what you just suggested, paying attention to me. Because no one ever has before! It was always other things about me that People noticed. Never ME."

DQ said honestly, "Your weight?"

She blushed and looked downwards, "Yes."

Don Quixote frowned sympathetically. "Not your fault my dear! It is but the result of poor Wizards and Doctors who do not know their craft. I recognize what you have. It is called hypothyroidism."

She shook her head, "Oh DQ it is kind of you to say. But no. I have been tested many times."

DQ said, "Ah! But my dear, a few years back the Doctor's guild announced that the range for reading thyroid tests had been changed and many a beating is deserved for the word is not getting out! Or Doctors are not bothering to keep educating themselves! So many People are suffering most horribly unnecessarily! They had been reading a fairly good test most incorrectly for all these years, and missing many cases. Has anyone said that you are within 0.3 to 3.0? Or do they say you are normal if your range is merely between 0.5 to 5.0? If you are outside of 0.3 to 3.0. you are going to put on a pound or worse, every year you live! But then if you are then properly treated with medication that includes T3 as well as T4 you can lose about a pound a month unless you really do just eat like a Pig! Because then even with just a normal non dieting type diet you will start to lose. Do this Susan! Take your temperature. Is it consistently low especially before you get up in the morning? If so no matter what they tell you your thyroid gland is so weak it is not warming your body up enough to burn the calories it takes in. So you cannot even run your body and brain right to think and function correctly! You have to keep taking in new calories to have anything to run your brain so you are constantly hungry all the time and you also feel a little depressed, my poor Damsel in Distress! This can be so even if you test within the normal range! The temperature is the thing! So Doctors need to treat their Patients not the test because Individuals vary too much and the test does not fit every one! Because some Folks though within the normal range do better in every way if treated as if they are hypothyroid anyway and put on T4 and T3 medication. How you gauge the dosage properly is best decided simply by how the Patient feels and functions! It is that simple but Doctors don't like simple! They want complicated tests they can make money off of! And watch the adrenals! Weak adrenals can make the body not able to handle the thyroid it needs so the heart rate goes up too high. In some People mild adrenal problems have to be treated at the same time."

Everyone in the room including Trevor stared at the, "Lunatic!"

Nothing is more disconcerting than a Lunatic who suddenly starts speaking Truth and Wisdom!

Trevor's Friends were used to him doing it!

But now another Lunatic was doing it!

As they left the counseling office Claire without one word pointed in the direction of their phlebotomy lab which just happened to be within sight of Dr Greeley's office. Susan nodded and started rolling up her sleeve!

Later Trevor sat in Claire's office for his usual Thursday session but it wasn't about him this time. Claire was beaming, "I shouldn't be telling you this. But I guess I can since she's sort of a mutual Client she did sort of 'hire' you, and sometimes for the Client's own good Professionals have to discuss their mutual Patients. Using the new range interpretation of considering anyone above 3.0 to be hypothyroid, (which by the way I did know), she is indeed a tad hypothyroid. Add to that some hippocampus damage from stress that caused depression because of the rape and some Omega 3 and B vitamin deficiencies which I also thought to test for due to being Dr. Greeley's Employee, which made exercise darn near impossible, there is no wonder she has a weight problem! The increased cortisol from the stress from the rape which did indeed wear out her adrenal glands would have intensified it but not been its original cause. Because yes, she was overweight even as a Child."

Trevor smiled, "Even I missed that! I guess I'm not the only, (he made quote marks with his fingers, 'Lunatic' People need to be listening to!"

Claire smiled. I guess this is true! I checked with Robert Cunningham's Nephew. His Wife was hypothyroid also and was even more obese than Susan for ten years of their fifteen year marriage before she was tested and the test was interpreted using the new ranges. Her old Doctor had used the old ranges and dismissed her complaints that she was too tired to exercise and not eating all that much. But once she was put on a natural medication containing T3 not just the T4 that the synthetic thyroid medications only contain, her weight rapidly dropped back to where it should have been. Of course alas though they didn't know it, full blown, untreated AIDs and a Cancer it had caused was helping her not feeling well along! But her horrendous obesity and lack of interest in Life due to not feeling well might have been why Robert Cunningham started seeking out prostitutes. A more alert Doctor who was aware the the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists changed the ranges for interpreting Thyroid tests over a dozen years ago and this whole tragedy might not have happened! DQ remembered these Thyroid facts from before he went delusional, Trevor! He loves Susan so much he allowed himself to remember an old memory just so he could help her! It's a good sign! A really, really good sign!"

Trevor nodded. "I do agree with that, Claire Bear. Maybe the original Persona hasn't bumped himself completely off, after all."He got a thoughtful look on his face. Are you still there inside me somewhere, Old Friend?

Claire asked, "What were you just thinking, Trevor?'

He gave her a Cheshire Cat grin but would not fess up.

Dr. Claire McCrae sighed and jotted, "Patient seems cooperative but even after five years his defenses and resistance to revealing any useful information about inward thought processes that could lead to a breakthrough in my reaching the Original Personality remain fully engaged."

Trevor realizing he had almost let something slip turned his distraction technique on. And as usual it worked. He just kept grinning at Dr McCrae silently, which spoke volumes. It finally made her unconformable. "What!" She asked.

"You help me more than even you realize!"

She beamed at him.

Internally Cupid added, Because you are so be YOOT if FULL! But quite sensibly not wanting a 'Doctor! Patient!' lecture he did not say it out loud!

Claire continued to beam. "And say this for Dr Greeley, Trevor. He may believe in over medicating to the point it makes Patients easy to handle for the Staff. But he also orders a full hormone workup, heavy metal screening, and nutritional analysis for every brand new Patient admitted here. And he tests for food allergies and intolerances. Most Psychiatrists aren't even up on all that stuff. We've caught so many cases of 'the spirit being willing but the flesh being weak' even your eyes would pop out if I listed one tenth of them!"

Trevor nodded appreciatively.

Claire added, "But that virtue is also his fault. He thinks EVERYTHING is physical, even you and wants to find a chemical to cure you."

Trevor sighed. "You have a point. He means well. If he kills or harms me and he very well might, it will be with kindness or out of sincere concern I might hurt someone. Dr. Freschette on the other hand, wants to get rich."

Claire shook her head, "That is only part of it. And that is compensation for what he lost and most of what he lost was peer and self esteem which he is trying to replace with money. He had a Patient kill his own Mother because he was a favorite of Dr Freschette's and the poor Man thought this Patient could make it outside the hospital Dr Freschette was head of at that time. So he signed his Patient out despite that seemingly harmless fellow still being a tad delusional. Sound familiar?"

Trevor frowned and swallowed.

Claire continued gently. "It cost him his position as head of that hospital. He was sued for millions and he took a job with Sachs-Gordon at a much lower salary and he will not ever forget that. Or ever trust another delusional Patient."

"But I don't hate my Mother!"

"But you do hate your Father."

"But my Father is on Olympus. I can't even get to him! "

Claire frowned. "But in your mind that could change. For all we know he could show up out of the blue one day and you could suddenly get to him."

Trevor sighed. "My Father's services are necessary even if I don't like what he does! Without war this beautiful Planet would be hip deep in Humans and there would be no room for other Animals. What I don't like about him is that he enjoys his job so much!" Trevor frowned. "But just exactly for that reason if for no other I go out of the way to be just the opposite of him. So Claire Bear even if I did not have recommitment hanging over me like a Sword Damocles I promise will never kill anyone with just two feet that doesn't have feathers and the only reason Beings with feathers would die by my hand would be if I needed food or to feed someone else."

Claire nodded, "That works for me, but I suspect his Patient made him a similar promise."

Trevor shrugged, "Life Claire! It's dangerous! I'm a risk! But I know I will never hurt anyone, not my Father even. Not even if I could! But how can I make you believe that?"

Claire smiled at him, "Oh I DO believe that. Don't you worry about that. I believe that more than I believe anything else in the entire Universe! Or why would I let you babysit my own Mother? Or maybe it was the other way around. It doesn't matter. I left her with you and visited my Sisters with no other supervision but each other figuring you'd keep each other out of trouble, and you each sort of did though you and her did paint that illegal mural along 42nd street. But everybody loved that it covered up all the graffiti. So even though it was done illegally every one let that little detail slide. So it worked. And I wasn't as worried as if I'd left the two of you without each others supervision. But I also understand completely why Dr Frechette does not trust you. And it is good I understand because it makes it easier for me to keep you living wild and free. I can negotiate better with an Opponent if I understand his mental viewpoint."

Trevor smiled, "Thanks, Claire Bear. The Fates picked a good one for me!"

She smiled at him. At it wasn't entirely a professional smile.

A Walk in The Park on a Crisp Fall Day And a Menace From the Past Defeated!

So for their first solo date they walked to and in Central Park. DQ spread a bright red table cloth on the ground for their matchmaker's sake deliberately near the statue of Mercury. This pleased the gentle, speedy giant no end for Cupid's Uncle always watched his Kid's attempts at matchmaking extremely anxious to have Eros home again! There under a stately oak Susan and DQ ate a simple "Peasant's" lunch of warm, brown, fresh baked whole grain bread and sharp cheddar cheese, and red wine. Then they packed up the remains and tossed them in a trash can and then held hands as they walked through Central Park for a very long time and admired the fall leaves and the early Christmas and Hanukkah decorations. DQ never tried to "put the moves on her" as a "modern Man" would have done. He was content to just hold her hand and walk and walk and walk. They walked for miles! He was in great shape, and she, feeling suddenly new stamina from the compounded natural thyroid Claire had prescribed for her that contained both T4 and T3 and a very mild dose of cortisone, found to her amazement she could keep up with him!

HIV positive though she was, she had never felt so good in her entire life!

They came to a more desolate area of the park. Susan remembered what Claire and Trevor both had said about not letting herself get alone with DQ for both their sakes. But yet the path had lead them there and she just did not feel like telling him to turn around and start back!

Somehow she trusted him! How strange after what had happened to her just a few years before and from a much more "normal" guy too!

She swallowed back her reservations and continued to walk beside him into the Forest.

There are parts of Central Park that if you don't look upwards at the tall buildings soaring above the tall and stately Trees or listen to the traffic sounds you might think yourself in a primeval Woods hundreds of miles away from "Civilization." You expect to meet a Native American around any corner. Or if you are more whimsical, a Unicorn in an Enchanted Glade or a Nymph or a circle of Leprechauns dancing in the moonlight. Of course for the most part only Humans, Squirrels, Pidgins and other Birds really exist there, that and the Angels, gods, elemental spirits and supernatural/futuristic things that Cupid could have seen if the psychic veil/mental force field hadn't been placed over his eyes as it is over ours when he was cast down.

DQ and Susan walked into one of these wild areas now. Susan did not feel afraid despite the warnings she had been given. She felt completely safe with this Man, out of touch with reality though he definitely was.

It was beginning to look more and more like she could indeed marry "DQ" and take him to her very real villa in Spain and hire Folks who could both humor and control him and keep them both happy in his fantasy the rest of their lives, which with proper medical care and nutritional supplements could still last a decade or two with a little luck and the real God's favor!

But there was still the serious problem of his "hitting folks over the head with his umbrella to solve interpersonal conflicts," as both Trevor and Claire put it. But Trevor was correct. She would have a better chance of persuading him to give up this practice than either a "Wizard" or his "mad, mad squire" would. So she turned on her feminine wiles and leaned her head against his broad shoulders and said gently, "DQ I have a favor to ask of you?"

He gazed down at her and smiled. "What is it my dear? Do you want me to climb the highest mountain or that very tall building over there? Do you want me to swim across the sea and bring you back a Whale's soul? Do you want me to find the secret to turning lead into gold? Whatever it is I shall do it for you my dear!"

She smiled, "I want you to give me your umbrella and then you don't ever obtain another. When it rains you just get wet! For the rest of your life!"

He stared at her as if she was the one who had gone crazy, "My dear what a strange request! But for you I shall do it! He handed her his umbrella and then got down on his knees and put his hand over his heart and bowed his head. "I swear in the name of all that is holy and just and kind and pure that shall never acquire another umbrella as long as I live!"

Wow! There were tears of joy and amazement in her eyes that he would do this for her when he had been so attached to his umbrella! She'd been given a huge apartment building once, and once someone had given her a diamond worth half a million dollars. Two separate Suitors had wanted to marry her but she had been so chronically exhausted and so depressed because of her undiagnosed hypothyroidism that she had turned both these handsome and very wealthy, would be Lovers down! Still she had felt some pleasure in these gifts and she got to keep both of them for they had been connected to her birthday and Christmas not to the marriage proposals which followed a few months later and both Gifters were so rich her keeping them caused them no problems. But neither of those presents gave her as much joy as being given DQ's umbrella!

So she held his precious security umbrella close to her heart and they continued their walk. She had never felt so happy!

And strangely enough neither had he! He never thought about the fact he had no memories of his childhood or young adulthood, but only of the last few weeks other than vague memories that could have come out of books or movies. (Because of course they had). But he was certain he had never been this happy! And he was right. Robert Cunningham's first Wife had been hypothyroid through most of his marriage to her. He was starting off this relationship with a Lady who though HIV positive from the very first had more "ommf" even if it did come from a compounding pharmacy and it hadn't started more than a week ago. So Susan was literally several degrees warmer than his Wife had been during most of their marriage and thus literally much more emotionally warm and loving. And there was a sparkle to her eyes that Mrs. Cunningham had possessed only for a few months before her death from HIV. Her hypothyroid diagnoses had also had been that late in her HIV diagnoses! But unlike the Cunninghams Susan could afford the expensive medical care for HIV that would prolong both her life and what Robert Cunningham's had become, for years and years and years!

Suddenly there was a rustle in the bushes. DQ was instantly alert as if some sense told him this was no ordinary rustle of leaves!

"What is it?" Susan asked contentedly.

"Trouble my dear! I can sense it! Blast it! Sancho isn't here! I did tell him not to be. Because of course we wanted to be alone! But he is a good man in a fight! We are about to need him! But, oh well!"

She stared at him her eyes frightened and wide! What was he doing? Hallucinating? Seeing wind mills? Monsters? Dragons? They were hundreds of yards away from help! Oh no!

It had been a mistake to trust a Madman!

Suddenly the rustling got louder and closer. He was right! Someone really was approaching them. But that didn't necessary mean it was someone hostile. Someone else went hiking probably and decided to go off the beaten path. What if he attacked an innocent Stranger? Even without his umbrella it could be very bad! Oh why oh why oh WHY hadn't she listened to Claire and Trevor!

He'd seriously hurt someone and they'd lock him up again and he'd never get out and it was all her fault for not listening!

Suddenly the rustling stopped and a Man pushed onto the path.

It was her worst nightmare come true!

"Harold!" She could barely squeak. She was that terrified!

Even though his flesh was Caucasian something about Harold's face (pure Satanic possession) made it as dark as an evil shadow! "Get me locked for two years for rape! You little tattle tailing, prudish, Bitch!" Harold's eyes were wilder than DQ's had ever been. "You'd have wanted it if you'd been a normal Female instead of a big, fat Whale! I should never have gone out with a Fat Lady! You are going to pay for getting me locked up and giving me a record for life!"

There was a long, sharp knife in his hands and he lunged for her!

Then she found her voice to really scream! But before Harold could lay a hand on her DQ's fist flew into her nightmare's face and he was knocked backwards, his right eye suddenly almost knocked out of his face by Don Quixote fury! Then DQ lunged on top of him and he went into real Madman mode, screaming and screaming and screaming in rage with relentless fury! The pummeling DQ gave did not stop for an incredibly long, long time!

Susan should have said something but she could not! She was in deep shock remembering how Harold had raped her and now this! Finally she found her voice and shouted "DQ! That's enough!"

And just like that he stopped. Mad or not he had never been out of her control!

The next hour and a half was a nightmarish blur of a panicky 911 call, Police coming who had an amazingly easy time of it understanding it was the really beat up guy on the ground not the Guy who insisted he was "Don Quixote of la Mancha" who needed to be hauled in. (The jagged knife still clutched in Harold's fist certainly helped that!) Some how, (most likely miraculously) he had not managed to stab DQ with it. Then there was a tearful meeting with Claire, Trevor and Dr Greeley and a long, long explanation and lots of repeated reassurances to all three of them but especially Dr Greeley (less Trevor and Claire) that while DQ had indeed gotten VERY violent, this time it had been totally justified and necessary!

That night she did not want to sleep alone! And it was DQ who slept beside her, still chase but certainly not afar!

"My god Susan! This place! He had exclaimed when he had seen her apartment on the East side. "It is a palace within another palace! How do you afford it on a Peasant's pittance? Oh I know! You are the Maid and your Mistress or Master is gone for the weekend and they have allowed you the use of it."

She gazed into his eyes, put her arms on his shoulders and smiled gently at her Mad Beloved and her highly competent Rescuer. She shook her head, "DQ I own the whole building!"

He stared at her. He did not believe it!

She nodded that she had just told the truth and smiled coyly.

He shook his head, "I am surrounded by gentle Madmen and Mad Ladies! My poor, poor, demented Susan! Quickly! We must get out of here before the real Owner or Owners return and we are found guilty of breaking and entering!"

She shook her head again and smiled. Would he understand what a Driver's license was? She took hers out and showed it to him, that her name and address was on it and it was the same location they were in. Would he comprehend it?

He did!

So they slept together that night. But it was chase sleeping. And she never felt for a moment that he would take advantage of her. And he never felt for one moment the desire to do so. And this was a body that when it was ran by a different operating system had "rose to the occasion" at just the sight of pictures on old 1920 era calenders of Ladies in very modest swimsuits!

Trevor's next counseling session again wasn't about Olympus or about being or not being a god. It was about reality and a very unhappy, gritty part of it at that.

Claire gazed at her gentle, heartbroken Patient. "Trevor you claim you are three thousand and five years old and yet you are shocked by what Harold tried to do?"

Trevor nodded, "I am indeed, Claire Bear. I just don't "get" revenge. Or rape either. There are so many willing Women! Why force one?'

Claire said gently, "Trevor you are strong and handsome. That makes it easy for you to find willing Women, that is it would be if you didn't have this delusion that if you had sex with a Mortal you would lose your chance to go back to Olympus!'

Trevor shrugged, "I may chose not to go anyway, Claire Bear. "

Claire's eyes lit up with hope. "I am SO glad to hear you say that! Do you have any particular Lady in mind?"

Trevor nodded, his eyes twinkling. He never took his eyes off of his Therapist.

She got what he was implying. She sighed. Changing the subject rapidly, "Anyway because of the way you look you would not, if you were willing, have any problems getting willing Females. Harold obviously wasn't finding it that easy.'

Trevor frowned and shook his head, "But Claire what you don't realize is what you see before you in the way of a body is not really me. You know that. You yourself deduced I had a Host. You just think he made me while I know full well the guy just called me in and my family won't let me leave. He is what I was forced into by my family when I was cast down. Back on Olympus my body is far from impressive. I am surrounded by real Adonis's, Apollo, my Father Mars, Uncle Mercury who while not handsome in face has a body like, well like a god, and BIG too! But as for me, except for my Uncle Vulcan who is basically wheel chair bound due to his injury (that is when he doesn't just fly, which he can do. He just can't walk or run or even stand very long), I am the least sexiest god in the keep! Which is so ironic considering who I am! But I'm shorter than the other gods, and pudgy, and I have these stupid, silly little wings that do nothing. I don't need them to fly. In fact they create wind drag when I do so. But that is how the Ancient Scribing Mortals wrote me. So of course. Sigh. That is how the Future Building Mortals built me! The only relief I get from this humiliation is when I leave Olympus and take a Host which I will never do unless one is willing. I'm a weird god like that for an Olympian but that is simply that. I will not steal!"

Claire gazed at her Patient in sympathy. Dr Leo was so right! Trevor did NOT have megalomania. Far from it! "So your point here is?"

"Even in that sorry state I didn't need my own magic bow and arrows to find myself hot dates, Claire Bear. I just knew how to listen to Women and they flocked to me because of that. All sorts of Women, Humans of all sorts, Mortals and goddesses, Nymphs, Aliens, I could have had Centaurs too but their hooves just scare me! The secret to having a great love life is not to be handsome or strong or rich or even intelligent though those things will help at first. But if you live in a small community where word gets out, just be kind and pleasant and know how to listen! In the long run if word gets out that a Man knows how to just be quiet and listen to a Women that will get him more sack time than any other social skill, Claire Bear. That and being gentle and patient and letting the Lady set the pace whatever her preference is."

Claire smiled at her Patient. In fact she beamed at him! "Trevor just sit there a moment while I do some 'jotting.' Then when this session is over I am going to rush right out of here and show what I am jotting to Dr. Greeley!"

Trevor shrugged.

Claire thought to herself as she wrote. What Trevor just said ought to be my final and completely successful argument against Dr Greeley's fears that this Patient would ever get violent!

When she had finished her lengthy and very complementary entry in Trevor's psychiatric file she set her pad down and looked at Trevor again indicating he could talk again.

And he did. "So I don't understand why Harold thought he had to rape Susan to get laid. Even if he had no success getting her willing, the next one might have been. Or the next one after that. In time he would have found someone willing and that would have been so much more fun and pleasurable! And the oxytocin levels for him would have been way higher! Why risk going to prison for a few moment's very evil pleasure that only satisfies the body but certainly not the soul?"

Claire sighed. "You really don't understand! Do you Trevor? Which is really weird for who you claim to be! Some men have such high testosterone levels they just can't wait!"

Trevor frowned, "I would think with all the soy you moderns eat and all the estrogen like pesticides and the estrogen in the make up Women wear that seeps through their skin and through the placenta when they are carrying Baby Boys...!"

"...Which causes us to have a lot of Gay Males. No doubt about that, Trevor. But for all we know other modern toxins may be messing some Males up in the other direction. Or some Men are just have hereditaryly high testosterone levels. After all rape is one way of passing on ones genes. Even today not all raped Women chose to kill their Babies. Some amazingly and very Saint-like Women figure it is not the Baby's fault and chose to keep their Children despite how the violent way they were conceived."

Trevor nodded, "They are right. It is not the Baby's fault. And the Baby of a rapist feels every slice of the scalpel cutting him or her up as he or she is aborted just as much! But it is harder to blame a Women under those circumstances. Still we gods with our omnipresent viewpoint, we...Trevor suddenly shuttered violently. In fact he almost retched!

Claire was glad he managed not to. She didn't feel like dealing with the mess! She continued, "Anyway Trevor there is a huge need for medications that can help society to deal with Men like that, and to help the Men themselves. We have Depo Provera and that does help but unless used very carefully it really does castrate and that should not be the goal of such therapy. We want to bring their levels of desire down so they can control themselves around Women well enough to romance them first not have them chemically not interested at all. Doing that to them is a big civil right's issue and guarantees few will come in for treatment on their own when they realize they have that problem! As I said Depo Provera can be used to just bring levels of desire down to a level that they can become patient and romance the Lady until she is willing. But it's tricky to use it that way. We need better medications, Trevor!"

Trevor nodded. "I know but why are you being so emphatic about it with me? I actually had something that worked like that. I had black arrows too that would make all sorts of Folks fall out of love. But I don't have them with me now anymore than I have my golden love arrows. You know they took them away from me!" He sighed.

She stared at him thoughtfully, "You one told me two of the ingredients in your golden arrow hypos were oxytocin and B12 but the rest hadn't been discovered by Mortals yet. You wouldn't by chance know what the ingredients were in your "black arrows?'"

Trevor stared at her. "You asked that almost like you believe me!"

She shrugged, "You have an IQ over 300 and a Creativity Quotient that is off the charts too. And you have been working at being Cupid for a very long time. Maybe just as the the Rainman can count cards you might know something the rest of us don't about this sort of thing. If I just ask the right questions I might help Humanity because of your madness. It could happen! Some of the questions that were asked to prot about where planets were have found real worlds. How he knew they were there no one knows! But this Madman was correct!'

Trevor shrugged, "Prot is not mad. He really is an Alien. And even if he were delusional as you think I am, neither one of us are, "Madman." The only being I know less mad than I am is prot. And you know it!"

Claire nodded, "I stand corrected. You are both too gentle and calm to be called, 'Mad.' But anyway prot knows where real planets are and I was hoping maybe you really knew something we could use to help sex offenders. Or at least help society protect itself from sex offenders."

Cupid shrugged, "I don't have contemporary names for the stuff in my black arrows, Claire Bear. Same problem as with the other, non-B12 non-oxytocin ingredients in my golden arrows. The names I have for the ingredients won't make sense to Mortals for a few more decades yet." He frowned sympathetically. "I am sorry! I really am!"

Claire nodded. "And that is a shame! Harold by the way is one of those rapists who does have that high testosterone problem. They wouldn't even give him Depo Provera while he was locked up even though he begged them for it to help him cope while he was in there with not being able to get any satisfaction! If they had he might have been willing to continue it once he was let out and this incident with Susan might not have happened! Hatred and thirst for revenge is also often high testosterone driven. In some ways I completely understand his thirst for revenge, not that that excuses what he tried to do, Trevor. But he has a real medical condition and like so many others who commit crimes because of an untreated medical condition he wasn't given the help he needs even though in this case he begged for it! That would make me angry too!"

Trevor frowned and nodded in agreement.

She sighed. "And when sex offenders WON'T cooperate, it gets even more horrible and harder to deal with! We lock them up for around two years. But they get out again and almost always harm some other Woman or Child. Ironically the Thyrox B they wanted to test on you would sure have been a great help to society, Trevor! There is a desperate need to find medications to help or at least control sex offenders who refuse to be helped. But they certainly should not be testing them on harmless souls like you!"

Trevor frowned. "I am glad this session is almost over, Claire Bear! I want to go home and drown myself in drink!"

Claire;s eyes widened. "Oh no! Are you developing an alcohol problem on top of your Cupid delusion?"

Trevor shook his head, "There is one liquid substance I can get right now in this realm that does have a bit of oxytocin and B12 in it. Also some other nice stuff that tastes very good! I plan to give myself a VERY big dose of it tonight to take my mind and heart off of what happened today!"

Claire stared at him, puzzled and very worried!

Trevor grinned, "Chocolate milk."

From Homeless to the East Side

The next day DQ announced he was moving out of the homeless shelter and moving into the apartment next to Susan's apartment to protect her.

Trevor smiled, "DQ that is quite an upgrade! From a cot in a homeless shelter to a luxury apartment!"

DQ nodded, "It will do for now. Susan says she thinks she knows where my villa is in Spain. I don't know why she does when I myself can't seem to remember! But she says she thinks she may. She said in few days if things keep going as well as they are now between us she may be able to tell me where my own villa is! How strange that is! But maybe I should not question it, 'Cupid.' He smiled. "If my faithful Squire thinks he is Cupid and so grandly actually performs the function of this mischievous minor deity to my perfect satisfaction, who am I to question that my beloved would know where my villa is when I don't seem to be able to remember?"

DQ Reveals a Secret!

The next day Susan took DQ to her Doctor who gave him prescriptions for the medications he would need to prolong his life. Susan also listened as he explained the complicated regime to help him follow it. But she hardly had to. She had been doing it herself for over a year. She held DQ's hand as he calmly and bravely listened to the Doctor, seemingly as rational as Trevor could be. They had both agreed to use a "false name"so that the Doctor would not be "overwhelmed to be treating a real Knight and fail to do as good a job as he could have done." So it was 'Don Johnson' who was sitting there listening to how he could live maybe up to two decades longer.

Susan thought to herself, We will have to use this ruse again! Because If 'Cupid' could take on a Clark Kent mode!

After the Doctor they went for Slurpees because DQ had really enjoyed his that day with Trevor. He told Susan how his "mad squire" had taught him to "slurp and burp" and talked of the imaginary "Olympics Slurp and burp Free style." "Even he admitted he was speaking of a mere fancy my dear. He may think he is Cupid but he still can dream as any of us can, of fancies to amuse."

Susan nodded.

DQ smiled, "And then he spoke of you my dear! I thought my mad Squire was but hallucinating! He told me something of you that had me sure as I am Don Quixote that you were but one of his mad fancies!

Then DQ whispered in Susan's ear. "Let me tell you what his fancy was. It will make you smile! Yes! My Sancho is charmingly cracked, thinking he is Cupid! And I thank the dear Lord for it, for he brought us together! But get this my beloved! He told me that day that you are my Dulcenea but that you want to be called Susan instead! Yes! He still thinks that, my poor mad, mad Squire! He keeps speaking of you to me as if you were her! So I humor him, my poor, poor mad Sancho! But I know you are not. Dulcenea is a Woman of my own perfect fancy. I can never hope to ever really find her for she is but a dream. You are real. You will wake up beside me in the morning without your makeup on and there will days you will be bitchy and crabby beyond anything I could possibly deserve! Because you are sick just as I am and we are both going to get much worse! But that is reality my dear! I know that. I am just so grateful to real the God of Love the false god of love found you for me!"

And that did it! Susan knew then she could spend the rest of her life, however long or short that would be, with Don Quixote!

So Susan took him to her villa in Spain! And they lived a very long time for what they had and died within seconds of each other, "their hearts peaceful and calm as they went to their rest" straight into the arms of Jesus/collective Humanity/the Omega Point of Evolution.

But they didn't rest one bit more than they wanted to for Walt Disney and many other Artists had been very busy! Soon Don Quixote and "Dulcenea were totally enjoying the 14th century Spain that had been designed for them inside the virtual environment of New Jerusalem/John's Cube. For all good Authors and Creators take responsibility for their creations and make sure they are given self awareness as soon as possible and have a happy afterlife too including Alternate Personas who already have self awareness..

And all the way around all the circlings of the Wheel of Time Don Quixote remained steadfastly and happily who his Creator, Robert Cunningham had deliberately and carefully designed him to be; the Ingenious Hidalgo, Don Quixote of La Mancha!

As for Robert Cunningham's own operating system, God forgave him for Robert had the sense to ask for forgiveness and ask for help before turning his hard drive over to DQ. So since he had been honest God rewrote the part of his code that had been damaged by Life.

So they all really did live happily ever after!

The End (not that there really is an end in a circling Universe.)

Authors note: Another You tube video to complete your multimedia experience. In their internal search box type in "IZ Somewhere over the rainbow what a wonderful world." Make sure you put 'IZ' in front of that.

Coming very soon. Cupid: Ascension to Olympus." A better ending to "Cupid's Daughter Delightful goddess of Serenity," that is more dramatic and fits the myths in a modern way but is a story in its own right. I will eventually reedit what I have to replace the inferior original ending which I never liked. To protect Trevor from sending money home to a "dead letter office and his "imaginary family" Claire travels to Thessaly. She finds Uncle Mercury and with his reluctant help, climbs Olympus and finds to her amazement that Olympus is real! She finally meets Cupid's family and learns the truth, becomes a goddess herself and then returns to her family more qualified to raise her daughter which she then knows will develop her own powers in time. But poor Trevor never will or be able to go home again until he dies a Mortal death in his old age, having temporarily given up his godhood because of his incredible love for her!