GRGR(6): End of the advent service

[Jeremy Osner]

So on page 135 at the bottom we get to the end of this madcap little
ride we've been on ever since the black man started singing in German
(which I have been reading again and again, with a very gradual increase
in comprehension); and suddenly "back in the story", we read "But on the
way home tonight, you wish you'd picked him up, held him a bit." I think
"you" is Jessica, "him" is Roger.

The point in time at which she wishes she'd held him a bit is the moment
when she was herself, not "who the Caesars say" she is (136). But she is
unable to move completely across that synapse -- she did *not* pick him
up, hold him a bit. And so, the moment unseized, she must retreat into
her "war-identity."

The last paragraph of episode 16 really strikes a chord in me; I know
that feeling all-too-well.