Love the story, Shayne. I can't imagine anyone else but Clark cleaning up Lois's apartment and taking a shower to wash off the mud she splattered on him. Not sure how he knew where she lived though. Did he x-ray her purse at some point and I missed it?
Kudos to the story. Now for a little hijacking.
A number of respondents have mentioned how "real" this Lois's world feels to them, how her reality seems to correspond with "our" reality so closely. I must take issue with the dark tone of the comments. (Not the story - the dark background in the story is perfect.)
The question of individual rights versus the security of society as a whole is not a new one. The American colonies were thirteen "free and independent states" under the Articles of Confederation from 1781 until 1789 when the Constitutional government was established. These same questions were argued back and forth quite enthusiastically for many months, and the US Constitution was eventually voted on and passed by all thirteen colonies, which then allowed the United States of America to begin operation as a viable political entity. We always have had - and probably always will have - disagreements between those who champion individual rights over the "good" of society and those who believe that individual rights must be preserved - but not at the expense of the rest of the society.
I do not agree that we as a people have surrendered too much to remain safe. There have been no more instances of terrorists killing Americans within our borders since 9/11. England and Spain have suffered deadly bombings, which shows that the terrorist enemy hasn't quit. I support a solution which keeps our society safe.
And just what would you do if you were charged with the safety of over three hundred million of your fellow citizens? How would you protect the rest of us who are unable to protect ourselves? Would you try to "negotiate" with the killers or would you try to destroy them before they destroyed you? Would you go to the United Nations and beg that august body to intervene and solve the problem? They've done so well in Somalia and Darfur and Bosnia, why not let them take care of Iraq and Afghanistan?
Remember that Saddam Hussein killed an average of seventeen thousand of his own citizens each year over a thirty-year period. He ordered the poison gas attacks on the Kurds and forcibly imposed his own version of Islam on his country. There was no freedom of the press, no right to habeus corpus, no legal remedy for his murder squads. And no one was allowed to express dissent.
And let's not forget the terrible treatment of women in Afghanistan under the Taliban. They were less than second-class citizens then - they weren't really even citizens. They were chattel, bought and sold and controlled from cradle to grave and forcibly dedicated to the service of their men.
I don't like the waterboarding at Gitmo. I don't like the way some prisoners were treated at Abu Ghriab. But before you come down too hard on these practices, remember that under Saddam or the Taliban or even in Saudi Arabia today, we wouldn't be allowed to even talk about such things. Those who condemn the US for allowing such atrocities (if that's the correct word) conveniently forget that there were legal repercussions for those involved at Abu Ghriab. They didn't get away with it. And few, if any, other societies would allow a public critique of the interrogation techniques used in Guantanamo Bay. You sure don't see such discussion in Iran about what that country does to people. How many Iranians published anything which disagreed with their government's handling of those British boats and their crews last fall? If any Iranians did publish anything negative, it wasn't printed in Iran. You want to protest totalitarian societies, why don't you start there?
(/end hijack)
