Tungsten Under Heat

One who is very refined and most assured and inspires great trust is telling us. It's the same chemistry as heavy metals in solution, she says. Say tungsten. On a lab slide, with heat added and then subtracted.

Little girls suffer the precise same pressures, conflict. She is of a sedate reddish hue and she has a reassuring half-smile. I am trying to write down her name, this one who says the development of young girls is like tungsten under heat.

I write "P - A - T - " but she corrects. "Start with "Niki." And I do, very precise in my penmanship to show her my scholastic alacrity, but I note my finely-chiseled letters must eventually bump up against my prior scribbles. There does not seem to be anything I can do to fix it. Oh, dear.

She says, okay, and takes over the pad. There, now.