I am happy.I have something to accomplish, create, and achieve.I am happy.

No magnetic wombats, no flying hyenas, no catfish masquerading as samurai, and, MOST CERTAINLY, no Duku jam!

To the European, it is a characteristic of the American culture that, again and again, one is commanded and ordered to 'be happy.' But happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue. One must have a reason to 'be happy.' Once the reason is found, however, one becomes happy automatically. As we see, a human being is not one in pursuit of happiness but rather in search of a reason to become happy, last but not least, through actualizing the potential meaning inherent and dormant in a given situation.

The last time I checked, I wasn__ the one who tripped over a glass container of sugar that I had myself dropped... after, of course, having received several bruises from an attempt to retrieve a flip-flop that had somehow ended up in the sink.

That,_ Adriana said, __s a puzzling mystery that must be solved.

The luminescent flow of a sunbathed garden_ illuminating the shifting colors of its inhabitants_ echoed in my memory as I opened the antique bookstore door in the shaft of window light. The books, like the flowers of the garden, awaited me with the thrill of a new mystery.