The Peacock 1859

"And that is what brought you here.  What was your life like before you came here." "I was a spoiled selfish arrogant little rich girl, too beautiful for my own good.  I trained in social work and became employed by the social services ministry whose mandate had become making it as hard as possible for the most vulnerable to survive.  It was all part of a massive social cleansing pogrom against the poor in our province.  My role was to catch people cheating on welfare and to make it impossible for them to receive further assistance, no matter how much it was needed.  It wasn't long before the streets of our city became just littered with homeless and beggars.  Our gracious Lord has redeemed and saved me from much." "Look who's here!" chimes Carl as we file into the sitting room to rejoin our friends.   "How did you get here?" says Francois, pulling back the empty chair next to him where Jeffrey seats himself.  George has found a spot next to Caspar, and now it occurs to me they haven't met.  Amaris has also found a chair on my left, on the other side of Jesus where he has just planted himself. "Amaris here came to get us." "Hello", she says, with a broad smile. "I am Francois." "I am very pleased to meet you." "You must live here", says Carl.  "Oh, I'm Carl, by the way.  Did you just arrive, yourself?" "I live here", Amaris replies without further ado. say I to Amaris, gesturing to the others in the room, "And this is Sven, and his sister, Stella, Sarah, Lawrence. and Jesús, and Caspar." "And where did you get to", says Carl to me. "Tron took me on a bit of a tour.  We sat in a kind of reading room for a bit, looking at this book with  beautiful colour plate of two peacocks, and we somehow entered the picture and it brought us to a garden and  fountain where Jesus was seated and then suddenly I was in the kitchen with him and his parents helping them make dinner, if you can imagine." "Which is going to be served shortly", says Jesus  "We are just waiting for two more arrivals..."