And so whatever words Hadley used, they don't really measure up to the truth. Maryann, though, never once lied, but especially in joy: "It was like Nature Herself was shooting out from your fingertips!"

Life, borne out in shocking bright light. But just remember that Light is just as frightening and destructive as the Dark, when you're that close to it. In The Grey King Susan Cooper says, "At the center of the Light there is a cold white flame, just as at the centre of the Dark there is a great black pit bottomless as the Universe."

In the best episode of Six Feet Under, there's a scene I go back to a lot, in which the son is taken in dreams by his father to a miraculous poker game at which both Life and Death are playing. Death looks uncommonly like the boy's father; Life is abundant. And before his eyes, they begin to fuck. In rhythm and in sorrow, but mostly they are one. And the boy becomes a man, enters the Game, begins to die.

Or I'm wrong, and it's the worst case, and maybe it's just what Anna Paquin said of Godric, IRL: "The last hope for peace committed suicide, because there was no hope for peace." Neat lady.)

Tara's realizing that there is exhilaration here; Alcide tells her to relax and her eyes roll uncontrollably: "I ain't even breathed for a week." He begs her to breathe; they keep driving. In the back, where they can't hear it, Sookie is dying. Her lover's hand is on her face, over her mouth, keeping her quiet. On the radio, it sings: "You get what you pay for..."

T-Dub is nasty and chromosomal in that Hotshot way. Jason approaches, nervous at first, but gives him a little of the old "I'm a cop! Not really, just in my mind!" There is discussion of how Crystal, shockingly enough, is T-Dub's cousin. And that man, her fiancé? Also his... He breaks off at this point, but duh. Finally, Jason remembers that he is Jason Stackhouse and can charm anybody in the world, so he relaxes and gives T-Dub a little Stackhouse Filibuster: "I don't know Crystal very well, but the little bit I do know her tells me she is a good person in a bad situation. And I think she deserves better, don't you? I mean, you're family." (This last with fingers interlaced through the bars.) T-Dub agrees to give him the Crystal info, but only as an exchange for the other kind of crystal. Jail will make you want things. And so Jason's quest for his Crystal becomes a quest for the other kind; Andy shows up and yells at both of them, and Jason scampers.