Mabel, Episode 4, Dator, in which a trail is followed.

The Hi, you've reached Mabel Martin. I'm not here to take your call right now, so please leave a message after the beep and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. Thanks.

Oh, this is a good one. And nothing can we call our own but death and that small model of the

barren earth which serves as paste and cover to our bones. That is Shakespeare, Richard II.

Oh, damn it, my phone's falling. This book's too heavy. Dear Diary, it's 3.30 in the afternoon, and the relief carer Lisa is here, making gingerbread in the kitchen, and I'm in the library looking at the

reference books. Everything smells like molasses and old paper. I know you like to read as a kid,

Sally has told me. If I were you, I never would have been able to leave this room.

Bell in the Beast's Castle.

Seriously.

I'm looking for...

Here.

D. Tatura. Tatura, the internet's so bad up here

up here, it takes 10 minutes to load my email inbox and I think it's been getting worse these past few weeks.

So I'm here researching by hand.

I prefer this, actually. It reminds me of school.

Not high school, which was just as terrible as high school can be, but nursing school, which I liked.

I know what they say about nursing students, but it was quiet. I was happy.

There, Datora.

A genus of solanaceous plants with large funnel-shaped flowers and afore-celled capsular fruit.

Synonym thorn apple or moonflower. Oh good. I found an encyclopedia Britannica. I'm gonna look it up. Have you ever been to therapy?

This is kind of like what I imagine therapy is like. I talk to you, but you don't talk back. Maybe, maybe if you were my therapist, you'd say,

and how does that make you feel, Anna, every so often?

...