Dear Cyndy,

Thank you for your letter. Our plans are to leave Konnarock
on October 18, expecting to arrive in Belmont on October 19.
I've toyed with the idea of returning on the "scenic"
Blue Ridge Parkway and Skyline Drive which we haven't driven
for many, many years. However, that route would lengthen our
trip by one and possibly two additional days. Given the
circumstance that we've been surrounded with dramatic autumn
foliage for the past several weeks, I'm not sure it's worth
sitting in the car longer than necessary to get back home.
Besides the Interstate through the Poconos, the Taconic State
Parkway and the Turnpike through the Berkshires will give us
additional autumn exposure.

My father's car was attacked by mice some years ago, after
his death. What damage they caused, if any, I can't remember.

I've spent several hours today tracking down an open circuit
in the video cables to one of my four surveillance cameras.
The connections to the computer are made by means of special
(and not inexpensive) cables, some 50, some 100 feet in length,
connected end to end by means of fancy, permanently attached
connectors. Although presumably designed for outdoor use, these
connectors are somewhat intolerant of moisture. They corrode
and fail to maintain the required electrical contact. The
circumstance that the cables are buried, albeit shallowly, in
the lawn and along the edge of the driveway, makes the project
something of a treasure hunt. The only safe tools for digging
are the five fingers, since a spade or even a trowel risks
lacerating the cable. After considerable trial and error, I've
managed to obtain images from all four cameras, but judging from
past experience, the success won't last.  

Tomorrow we'll drive to Damascus, where for 6 years I practiced
medicine, through 12 miles of spectacular foliage on a road so
tortuous that even though tagged with the exalted emblem "US 58",
it's closed to trailer-trucks. The purpose of the trip: to fetch
from the post office a package deposited there by "Smartpost"
containing a radio manufactured by a company called "Cambridge
SoundWorks", a discontinued item which I snagged from the
Internet at a 70% discount. The rationale: when we leave Konnarock,
I like to protect the house against burglars with two radios tuned
to two different stations. The original radio I foolishly ruined by
trying to use it as an alarm clock in a receptacle designed for
incandescent light bulbs, containing a frequency multiplier that
overloaded and destroyed the radio's input condenser. The first
replacement, from Walmart, had such poor electronics, that it
would stay fixed to a given frequency for only a few minutes.
CambridgeSoundworks, one of whose founders was a patient of mine,
is brain-powered by MIT and, if past experience is a guide, sells
products with very high quality electronics. As for "Smartpost",
that's FedEx on the cheap. The package takes ten days to get here,
and will be deposited at the post office to be picked up by us.

You've inquired about my novel. Here is an outline of the next
chapter or two.  You will remember that when the PANIC in the police
station parking lot on The Island had subsided, Katenus, Mengs and
Magus were conducted into the office of Police Chief Martin Brandes,
who it turned out was himself a lover of literature, specifically
of literature about the girl detective Nancy Drew and who decides,
upon being invited by Mengs to lecture at the University, to
release the Professor and his assistant, but is persuaded by
police officer Buddy Blevins to hold Katenus on charges of sedition
and terrotist sympathies, on the classical rationale: If thou let
this man go, thou art not Caesar's friend. Accordingly Katenus was
detained, but Joachim refused to leave because he was loyal to Katenus,
and Jonathan refused to leave because he was loyal to Joachim.

On this first night the three find themselves imprisoned in the
Juror's Conference room. Katenus attempts to preserve his emotional
and intellectual equilibrium by starting among the three of them, 
a discussion about the theory of knowledge, a topic which is of 
interest also to Mengs and Magus, although, it turns out, less
compelling for them than for Katenus. As a result, the burden of
the exposition falls on him. They listen, but only absent-mindedly.
Mengs is distracted by day dreams, he silently recites to himself
the details of a long life which seems to be approaching a turning
point. Joachim, younger and with fewer memories to occupy his mind,
starts to examine the framed images with which the walls of the jury
room are decorated. These consist of documents such as newspaper
clippings, indictments, legal motions, verdicts and sentences, and
pictures of prosecutors, witnesses, jurors, judges, of the families
of the defendants, and of course of the defendants themselves, in
shackles, in prison garb, on the threshold of execution, and in
several pictures, post mortem photographs of their brains, hearts,
livers and kidneys, harvested for anatomic and physiological studies. 
Also pictures and descriptions of so-called hate parties, social
events celebrating the triumphs of justice. (If this is not enough
to stimulate Joachim's imagination, there is an unlocked cabinet
with court records and documentation going back several centuries,
which I haven't yet looked into.)  Each of the three men passes the
evening in his own way, then falls asleep on the cot that has been
provided by the police officers, and begins to dream, talking in his
sleep.  

Katenus dreams that he is in Oslo giving his acceptance speech for the
the Nobel Prize in Medicine for his discovery of the biology of knowledge
as assimilation, and a second Nobel Prize in literature for having
discovered the mathematical nature of Leibniz' Monadology and the
theological nature of Leibniz' differential and integral calculus,
effectively bridging the chasm between theology and mathematics. 

Mengs dreams that Katenus has been sentenced to life imprisonment and
has died in prison, and that Katenus' housekeeper Elly has moved to
the Mainland to keep house for him, and he agonizes whether it is
permissible for him to be in love with her.

Joachim dreams that his girlfriend, Charlotte has charged him with
sexual misconduct and that he is defending himself in a proceeding
in which Charlotte is accuser, star witness, prosecutrix, jury forewoman
and judge. After she has sentenced him, Charlotte recants and seeks his
release testifying that her accusation was false, and that she didn't
really intend to accuse him but merely to demonstrate that she was a
liberated woman. In consequence of her confession it is either her
freedom or his freedom which will be irrevocably lost. As he awakens,
Joachim doesn't know what he should do, whether he should sacrifice
himself for Charlotte or whether he should sacrifice Charlotte for
himself. He falls asleep again and has a second dream in which the
ghosts of the convicted, among whom he recognizes Katenus, the ghosts
of the accusers, of the prosecutors, of the jurors and the judges are
even now concealing themselves in the jury conference room where he,
Joachim is the maintenance man responsible for order and decorum.

Each of the three men talks, gesticulates and intermittently screams
in his sleep, as he tried to explain his dream to his sleeping comrades,
absurd and unintelligible revelations out of context. For each of the
three, the night has turned into an agonizing ordeal.  In the morning,
the Chief of Police appears as liberator, even for Katenus. He berates
Buddy and Billy that along with Katenus, they also imprisoned Mengs and
Magus, who are to be released and escorted home forthwith. Home is
Katenus' mansion on Main Street where Elly has been in despair waiting
for the return, especially of Katenus, and is now devastated by his
continuing imprisonment.

It's a long, complex but arguably important story, which will require
more than one chapter for its exposition. As usual, I don't know how
long it will take me, or how well I will be able to manage an admittedly
difficult plot. One of the advantages of no potential readers is that
the product's quality won't matter.

Stay well, and give my best to Ned.

Jochen