She had high hope in its prosperity, but something beneath that hope threatened her security and blocked lucidity.

Today she was stuck in her mind, thinking of the children of Brewer Ave that she had become so well acquainted with, then men that respected her authority and complied with her requests when she was around. For some reason they boomed in her mind and threatened her sanity at the moment.

For all that she had done with them, helping the majority of the convicts get jobs and the youths to join and stay in after school programs, all that she could see now was hopelessness and death.

Detective Tamara swallowed hard and inched forward in the traffic. Maybe she had overdosed on the jasmine and was having an episode, like her mother often did when she was younger.

She didn’t even know why she burned incense maybe because it was a familiar scent, she had never believed in the spiritual claimed that came along with incense burning, she had always been very practical and was just barely clinging to her belief in God. All things that was not weather or natural science was not real in her eyes. If it wasn’t practical then she was sure that it wasn’t real.

Her mother had been highly spiritual and often suffered from ‘psychic episodes’, she claimed that she could speak to the dead and feel the future, though Tamara couldn’t fathom this possible, ‘aren’t you supposed to be able to see the future as opposed to feel it?’ she would often ask her mother when ever she would offer Tamara a piece of foreboding advice or prophecy. Her mother knew and sensed Tamara’s disbelief but was always patient and optimistic that Tamara would convert to her belief in spirituality; she would always respond in a playful but steady voice, ‘Well I would let you know now, but your future tells me that you’ll find out in a different way.’ And with a flash of her big eyes walk away or begin doing a ritual of some sorts.

Tamara would roll her eyes and forget about it. Tamara only agreed with her mother that God existed and that he was the creator of earth, but that was it. As for the way that a person was to efficiently communicate with him and seek his help and guidance Tamara preferred the traditional knees and hands prayer routine, while her mother preferred a full out ritual and believed in the God and Goddess, Tamara knew there was only God and that he heard a prayer whether said out loud or in the head, she knew that the truth of his existence lied in the bible and all that she needed to know about him and this world was printed in its texts, when Tamara was 8 she decided to go to church with the neighbors and while her mother had no problem with it she made no attempt to share the beliefs of the Christian church and made no attempt to hide her contempt for the religion that she called the imposter religion.