From: Michael Andre-Driussi <mantis@sirius.com>
Subject: (urth) PEACE mansion denizens & one stroke or two?
Date: Fri, 27 Oct 2000 09:16:30 

Roy's post on the plural pronoun (re: the dishwasher) and the cigarettes,
pointing to at least one other person living in the mansion, if true, also
serves to validate Den's sense of being all alone in the frame tale (in
contrast with a different state before).

Roy wrote:
>If Den had a stroke related to Sherry's death, after becoming president,
>where was Sherry that he would even know of it? And why should her death
>provoke a stroke? She was about 25 years younger than him; did she die of
>natural causes? Was she in his home the night she died, living there in much
>the same capacity as Mab served his grandfather?

This brings up many good points.  It also seems like an opportunity to
raise the "one stroke or two medical emergencies?" tangle.

If Den had just the one stroke, and died of it (within, say, twelve hours),
then we would have to place that stroke/Sherry's death at Den's age of 60+.
And Den's astral visit to the doctors is about this one and only medical
crisis.

OTOH, Dan French and Miss Birkhead seem to see Den's limp and know
something of its history; Dan French expresses concern over Den's upcoming
appointment to visit Dr. V.  This suggests that Den had the stroke, then
recovered enough to be able to work at the plant for some time (if we bar
the idea that Den's frametale condition is projecting into the astral frame
so that people can see it).  This suggests there was the stroke/Sherry's
death, and then a year or maybe several years later, a second medical
crisis that proved fatal.  This decouples Sherry's death from Den's age of
60+, and puts Den's age at time of stroke somewhere between 50 and 59.

(Then again: it is Miss Birkhead who can see the limp, which might be just
another pointer to her psychic connection/walking regret condition.  That
is, if there is someone who can see the shadow of the future self, it might
be such a person.)

=mantis=



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