And what is the question that is so important, and of such import, a red taped letter floating freely in manilla up the courthouse steps to arrive out of it’s case torn from the side of the bovine lady minding her business, her cud, the green grass of a pasture in Yorkshire, a fly on her back, a swift flick of her tail; to arrive out of its case to be judged, to be questioned, by a man not so astute as yourself, waking just this moment from a midday dream about buying new socks as the one’s he is wearing, socks loosing their fit; so important is this question that we cannot just idly wash it away on a summer’s day and hang it to dry in the crisp sunlight on the porch of some clapboard cottage in need of painting, chipped, dried, and gray just it as was did fifty years ago when our mother’s hiding, blushed behind the railing at the young milkman delivering his goods winking at her; because it is so important, and the question, asking why, why must this prose twist and taunt our tounges with such verbosity that our minds wend this way and that in search of Cairo or a pyramid or back to the country cottage looking for some connection to all of the words pattering forth out the pen, used twice by Gates, as it isn’t really a pen at all, being fashioned of plastic hewn on the Mississippi, pouring out of stacks the horrible stench of petroleum on the poor tourists looking for beauty in old architecture, the great alleys, hoop skirts; the connection that puts this at once in mind of old Virginia, spewing forth with nonsense of every kind, ignoring the greatness of the story and of causing her audience, aged though they may be now, to drift off on some fantasy of their own about where are the cigarettees, and what’s for supper, and who’s to be seen this weekend? Tell me, tell me, what is her point, her purpose, if being only to commit to page, another page? I dare say, I’m afraid of Virginia Woolfe.