 We're going to take a look at just a few pages from DC's Vertigo, Shade the Changing Man, number 49, and this was part five. I believe that this was a season in hell. This is part five, so we're not going to give too much spoilers in this. I believe this is a six-issue story arc that ends part six with number 50. This is Shade the Changing Man, number 50, and this is a very important issue. Very important issue. Much happens in this to many of the main characters. That's the only spoiler I'm going to give you. The titles of these things, number 50, is Love, Labor's Lost, but let's have a read-through. Issue number 49, just a few pages, and just to let you know, in this issue the conversation we're going to read is the conversation between Shade and, in issue 49, his partner, the blonde girl that you see here. These are the two main characters in the few pages that we're about to read. This character, let me show you, that's her right there, and they meet up basically in either the first or second issue of Shade the Changing Man when the series first began. So Shade and, well, Kathy's gotta be Kathy, the name's skipping me right now, but they're both right from the get-go. They're there. Okay. Oh, Elder God's coming in. Love's Labor Lost is Shakespeare Missing Manuscript. Really? I have no idea. Very cool, very cool. So let's put this one away, and we're picking up in sort of mid-story here, and the only background you need to know for this, the only background you need to know for this is that they're together, okay, and this $20 bill that is going to be the central focus of the story has been appearing in the last few issues at random points where she has been looking at it and thinking and talking to herself, and all we know so far, we don't know anything about this $20 bill other than it was important to her, and it is important to her. Okay? That's it, and all we're going to do is read, like, I think it's like five pages. Okay? And I titled this thing, The Bookmark as Life, and this is the hotel that I've been staying at, and they own the hotel, by the way, it's not an open hotel, it's just they own the hotel and they live there. It's strange how the hotel has been so hot recently, yet now the air around it is so cold, the steam hangs from their mouths like comic book word balloons. The west wings untouched, we could move back, move back in right away, Shade says, no, I don't want to stay here tonight, I just want to pick up a few things from my room. And just so you know, there was a fire in the hotel in the previous issue, and she's going into the hotel to pick something up, or some stuff up, and Shade is waiting outside. The bill seems oddly crisper than usual, but old Hickory's face is still intact, unlike poor shimmies. And shimmy is another character in the story arc, and then they go back to the hotel they're staying at right now. Later, in adjoining but separate rooms, Motel faced, she stares at the bill. The first time I saw it, I was just 17 years old, she says. So, what's so important about it? Shade asks. I could find out, you know, I could eat it, or something, and intuitively know its relevance to you. Now keep in mind they're partners right now. She's actually pregnant with Shade's child. I know, she says, but it's going to sound really stupid. Good, I need something really stupid right now, Shade says. Well, I was at a party I didn't want to be at, with my parents, whom I didn't particularly want to be with. It's hard to admit when your parents are dead that there was times when you couldn't stand them, she says, looking at the $20 bill. The party was at one of their friends' houses, and the average age was about 90. We were fighting. I forgot what we were fighting about, but at the time I was the most important thing in the world. It was the most important thing in the world. The point of it was that they were treating me like a child, a little girl. I'd said something about chains or straight jackets or fascism, which, as they were good liberals, always managed to piss them off. I left them and went to cool off in the garden, which was the size of a small farm. It was a beautiful night, but I didn't see it. This guy was smoking a joint down by a really cutesy ornamental pond. He was about my age. I didn't say a word to him, not a single word. When I sat down beside him, he handed me the joint, as though I'd been there all along. He blew smoke out of one nostril, then the other. I was impressed, though I tried not to show it. Five minutes later, we were doing it. We still hadn't said a word. He didn't even bother taking our clothes off. I was smiling, partly because I was a little high, but mostly because I was thinking about my parents in the house and what they'd think if they could see me now. This is me, I thought, I'm liberated. I do what I want, she says. We still hadn't said a word as the boy hitched up his pants. He pushed the hand into a pocket. He pulled something out. It was a $20 bill and he threw it at me. He threw it at me and turned and walked away. And I just sat there, holding the bill, staring at it, not believing it. The bastard had changed everything. It was no longer an act of liberation, a sign of my own self-determination. He turned it into something grubby. I'd had sex for money. There I was, thinking I made some kind of brilliant gesture. And he turns around and pisses on it. So it's the past, forget it, Shade says. But it's not just the past, she replies. All we seem to be are empty gestures. Look at Shime today. He tries to save Lily, who finds her own way out and ends up getting torched for his efforts. An empty gesture, that's all, she says. You're blowing things out of proportion, Kathy. That's my job, Shade replies. No, and look at me and this baby, whatever I think, whatever I try to do, life might just turn around and hitch up its pants and throw me a $20 bill, she says. What are you doing, Shade replies? Another empty gesture, what else? I could bring myself. I could bring myself to do this before, she says. She can feel herself crying as she throws the bill away. It's always a melancholy occasion when you let go of the past, however unsavory that past might be. Another piece of old skin, the dead, a little more dead. She really has no idea quite what or whom she's crying for. Take your pick, she thinks. Take your pick.