To weep is to risk appearing sentimental.

To reach out for another is to risk involvement.

To expose feelings is to risk exposing your true self.

To place your ideas, your dreams, before a crowd is to risk their loss.

To love is to risk not being loved in return.

To live is to risk dying.

To hope is to risk despair.

To try is to risk failure.

But risks must be taken, because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.

The person who risks nothing dies nothing, has nothing and is nothing.

They say they avoid suffering and sorrow,

But they cannot learn, feel, change, grow, love, live...

Chained by their attitudes, they are slaves.

They have forfeited their freedom.

Only a person who risks is free.

                                             -- Anonymous

Thank God for breakable hearts.  He was free.

The grief that descended upon them then went beyond the ability of words to describe.  It was like a suffocating cloak of heavy wool wrapping itself unceremoniously around their very hearts.  Tightening its hold until every emotion other than pain was wrung out of their consciousness.  They shed their tears silently individually.  Painfully.

And just when the weight of their shared yet solitary sorrow seemed about to crush their very souls

"Ishtar, huh?" Alice remarked lightly through their sadness.  "Isn't that some cheesy movie Dustin Hoffman made in his lean years???"

Tina smirked painfully at the ridiculous comment.

"Shut up Duck-face we can always count on you to break a mood, huh?" Bette chucked back as she sat Tina down.

"What?  Come on you guys, you know Mo wouldn't want us sulking at least not for too long there's work to be done and stories to be toldspeaking of which - ," she eyed the two I.N.N. women suspiciously.  "So --- what's the story?"

"Oh Duck-face" Tina exclaimed, taking Bette's nickname for the hack.  "where do we begin???"

--------------------------------------------------------

"All three left Baghdad soon after that.  Nur.  Ishtar.  And the Shammal, herself. To return to their distant lands or maybe grace another one with their presence the desert was changed forever by that summer tempest.