| Vignettes

Paul Strickland,

Contributor.

“Tu vas a morir! [You're going to die]”
Cecilia told Warren when he told her he
was taking the bus from Madrid to Mu-
nich.

In recent weeks Warren had seen only
more frequent demonstrations and ever
intensifying riots met with tear gas and
rubber bullets from Guardia Civil. Strikes
were spreading everywhere, and he feared
a re-play of the Spanish Civil War now that
Franco was dead. Best to get out to rela-
tively peaceful West Germany.

That night he slept very little in his sec-
ond-floor room. He saw images, in rapid
succession, of the Plaza Mayor, the Prado
Museum, the Universidad Complutense
de Madrid, El Parque de Retiro, the Hotel
Lacorzan where he'd stayed the first three
weeks after arriving in Madrid, Avenida de
Jose Antonio, the downtown post office
(El Correos) — all the places with which
he'd become familiar during the past three
months. He'd heard the myth about those
falling off cliffs seeing a rapid review of
their lives before they hit the valley floor
below. Maybe he was dying to Madrid.
Maybe he'd never see Madrid again.

Early the next morning, Cecilia gave him
a kiss at the side of the bus. A strav snow-

flake drifted by.

Warren got on the coach.


“When are you going to buy me a house

if not in Heritage or the Hart Highlands,
at least in College Heights?” Wilma asked
Warren after their dinner together Sunday

night.

“We've been acquired by a new group,”
he told her. “We should wait to see what
the new general manager does.”

Monday morning during the drive to
work there was news on the car radio
about the cutbacks by the Chretien gov-
ernment. Warren walked toward his desk,
but he was told to go directly to a staff
meeting in the boardroom with the new
general manager, Harrington McTavish.

“You people are lazy,” McTavish told the
frightened employees. “You haven't had a
new idea in years.

“I have a good mind to lay off the whole
lot of you!”

After work Warren called his friend,
Gary.

“What's the matter, buddy?” Gary said.
“Can't you take it?

“That's the nature of a job, don't you
know?” Gary continued. “Maybe you're
depressed. You should see your doctor

» .
about Prozac.

He called Wilma and said that, in view of

the layoff threat, he couldn't see his way to
making a down payment on a house quite
vet.

“You're lacking in commitment,” she said.
“It's off. It's over between you and me.”

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