Hushed, the audience sat, eyes forward on the flickering glow before them, waiting for the symphony to begin. The maestro paced before them, instruments silent, listening only to the voice in his ear, waiting. Waiting.

Then, “We’re in,” Birkoff announced, and his symphony began, first little trills of outer cover data, then the staccato percussion of finances. Somewhere, off to his left, Roberta was getting the personnel files, like violins, like a thousand strings, like the harps of Heaven itself. Then behind him the brass began, flooding three terminals with a swell of materiel records, collating with and supporting the personnel data . . .

And the symphony continued into crescendos, then tapered into a solo as the data twined and wove and rebuilt itself into an ethereal tapestry. The symphony continued, and Birkoff conducted, thoroughly in his element, bringing disparate pieces into a seamless whole. The extraction, a coda, occurred, and still Birkoff conducted. Operations watched like a patron in the wings. Until he saw Michael in the midst of the orchestra. Operations narrowed his eyes. Michael should be in the White Room, conducting his own little concerto of truth. Michael tilted his head to a neutral corner. Puzzled, Operations met him there.

Michael handed him a card. “This was taken off one of the prisoners.”

Operations studied it. It was a cheap little I.D. issued by a local social service agency. “Hostile?”

“Innocent.”

Operations stared at the picture on the card a while longer. “Who else has seen this?”

“Mentz. Nikita.”

Operations glared.

“I told them this was—delicate. I assigned them to stay with her.”

“Where?”

“Intake Three.”

Operations pocketed the card. “Have Madeline meet me there.” He shot a glance at Birkoff. “No one knows about this. No one.”

Michael nodded once and disappeared in search of Madeline.

Mentz was glad when Operations and Madeline, followed by Michael, dismissed them. He didn’t like being privy to secrets. In Section, that was a good way to wind up dead. So he fairly well bolted when Operations ordered him to debrief.

Nikita, on the other hand, leaned in the doorjamb. “I’d prefer to stay and watch.”

“This isn’t a public spectacle,” Operations said.

Nikita folded her arms. “Then what is it?”

“Debriefing. We have to know our exposure.”

“And interrogating her won’t create even more exposure?”

Madeline smiled. Chills ran the length of Nikita’s spine. “That’s what we’re going to find out.”

Nikita began to reply. Michael put his hand on her elbow. “Go.”

She did, reluctantly, after a quick glance at the woman on the other side of the glass.

Outside, Nikita weighed her options. Michael said the situation was “delicate”. Not “secret”. Not “classified”. Not even “don’t tell”. Just “delicate”. She studied the gray door for a moment, thinking about what might be happening on the other side. Thinking about right and wrong. About what people had the right, the need, to know. About what happened in Section when someone’s rights and someone’s needs interfered with doing business.

She studied the gray door, and she thought.

Then she made her decision and headed up to Comm.

The woman looked up as Madeline and Operations entered the room. It was white, all white, with a cot in the corner and a table and chairs in the center. A large mirror dominated one wall. The only color was her pink waitress uniform. She quit tugging at some errant strands of hair and rose. “Are you in charge?”

Operations didn’t like this woman. He just met her, and he hadn’t liked her for years. She was low, lower than any killer Section had ever recruited, lower than the terrorist scum he had vowed to eradicate. He hated her and had for years, hated her not just for himself, but for what she had done to a little boy too innocent to understand the vagaries of adults. He gestured her back into the chair. “Yes, I am.”

She came to her feet again. “That man accosted me.”

“Who?”

“Him. That Man.” She stabbed her finger at the two-way mirror.

Madeline smiled, all sweetness and light. Experience had taught her that was the best tack with concomitant collateral. People were often annoyingly eager to please authority figures, even if they had no concept of what exactly that authority was. “How do you know anyone’s out there?”

The woman gave Madeline derisive look. “I can feel him. Watching me.” She glared at the mirror. “He took my purse.” Operations and Madeline exchanged glances over her head.

“Is this yours?” Operations handed her the card Michael had brought to him.

“Yes.”

“So,” Madeline asked, “your name is Bathsheba Birkoff?”.

She smiled. “Everyone calls me Babe.” She sat down, shoved her hands into the pockets of her sweater. “Can I have my purse back now?”

Madeline took the chair to her right and motioned for Operations to sit, too. “We’ll send someone for it.”

“Not That Man. I don’t like him.”

Madeline smiled. “No. Someone else. But while we’re waiting, why don’t you tell me a little bit about yourself?”

Babe craned her neck nervously. “No. No, no, no. I don’t like that—“ She began to twitch around, scanning the room for a way out. “As soon as I begin to tell things, that’s when people get mad.”

Madeline smiled and took Babe’s hand in her own. She stroked it, and Babe began to calm. “All right, how about this? You tell me one thing about you, and I’ll tell you something about me, okay?”

Babe smiled back. “Okay.” She drew a deep breath and in one volley, said, “My name is Babe Birkoff and I live at Sunshine House, which is for people who just got out of the hospital but not the regular hospital like where you have operations and babies but the other kind—you know—and I work at Sandy’s Diner where That Man came in and shot everything up and he started arresting everyone customers and employees alike and he didn’t even say “Freeze” or “Stop in the name of the law” or anything and he even shot the jukebox while it was playing a Hank Williams song which was just mean and rude and he should really get demerits or something because that was NOT friendly and I work busing tables and taking water to people and I have to call in or Nancy the director of the house is going to get very irate with all of you because I have to be back to take my meds or I get unstable she says which means I may have to go back to the hospital if I get too bad and if you’ve ever been in that kind of hospital you would know its not fun and I have the right to a phone call I saw that on TV.”

Madeline blinked.

After a long moment, she said, “I’m sure we can accommodate you. And we do have medical facilities on site so we can take care of getting your medication for the time being.”

“Now you have to tell me who you are and where this is.”

Madeline smiled again. “My name is Madeline and this is my assistant—“

“I thought he was in charge.”

Madeline mulled. “He’s in charge of some things—“ Operations shot her a look, “—but right now he’s assisting me.”

“Ah,” said Babe.

“Ah,” Madeline replied.

“And?” Babe prompted.

“We are at our facility—“

“Well, duh!”

Operations bit the inside of his cheek to keep quiet. Madeline, ever-patient, said, “Now, hush, let me finish. You are in our facility in which we train policemen like the ones who arrested the people in the restaurant—“

“Well, you need to train That Man some more, because he was quite rude and pushy and they are never like that on “Cops” and he just needs a very harsh talking-to. And demerits!”

Madeline gave Operations a look. “I’ll see to that harsh talking-to thing,” he said. Madeline glared. “Ma’am.”

“And demerits.”

“And demerits.”

“Is that what you’re in charge of?” Babe asked.

Operations sighed. “Yes, I’m in charge of the harsh talking-tos.”

“And demerits.”

“And demerits.” Operations sighed again, and began to massage the center of his forehead where a hellacious headache was beginning to form.

And the interview continued

“Whatever it is, I don’t have time, “ Birkoff snapped when he noticed Nikita hovering in his peripheral vision.

“Make time.” She snapped the monitor off.

He flipped it back on. “Some of us are still working.”

She spun his chair around. “You’re on lunch.”

He spun back. “Lunch was three hours ago.” He kept checking data files. “Go away.”

Nikita sighed. She stood up, stretched her neck, slowly, deliberately, the crick-crick-crick muffled by the electronic hum that was the soundtrack for life in Section One. Then she leaned down and whispered, “How many Birkoffs are there in the world?”

“Huh? Is this a joke?”

“No joke. How many?”

“The whole world? All the name variations? I dunno, a few thousand maybe. It’s not exactly Smith or Wong. Few enough that you’ll probably never meet another one.”

She leaned to the opposite ear. “Then why is one sitting down in Intake Three?”

Birkoff’s eyes widened. “What?”

“I don’t know who she is, but some woman—“

Birkoff bolted out of the chair and was double-timing up to Intake when Nikita caught up to him. She grabbed him by the shoulder and bounced him against the wall. “Stop. Think.” She took a deep breath. “Do you think you can go charging in—“

“Yes.” He tried to push past her, and she bounced him against the wall again.

“No. Right now Operations, Madeline, and Michael are interrogating—“

Birkoff broke left. This time she not only slammed him, but also held him pinned. “Stop. Breathe. Think. Let me go in first, and when it’s clear, I’ll let you in.”

Birkoff breathed. “But what if they’re—“

Nikita’s eyes softened. “If they are, what do you think you can do?”

Birkoff slumped, closed his eyes, and nodded. “Yeah. What can I do?”

Michael was alone in the observation room when Nikita stuck her head in. Madeline and Operations were still on the other side of the glass. Michael said, "Done debriefing already?"

"Sure. Yeah." She entered the room. "So what's happening now?" Operations paced like a human storm cloud, Babe hunched over the table tugging at a lock of hair, near tears, chattering away about something that made no sense to Nikita. Madeline sat, serene and collected. It was not going well.

"I'm getting demerits."

"Demerits?" Nikita giggled.

Michael arched a brow at her and then resumed watching the interrogation. "Demerits. And a harsh talking-to."

Nikita snorted. "In Section, is there any other kind?"

"Ms. Birkoff seems to think I need further training."

"I see."

"I shot a jukebox playing a Hank Williams record, and apparently in some parts of the Midwest, that's unforgivable." Michael picked a spot over her left shoulder and studied it intently. "Who is Hank Williams?"

"He was country western singer from the late forties-early fifties," came a calm voice from the door. "He was decapitated in a car wreck on New Years Day 1953 on his way to a concert in Canton, Ohio."

"Birkoff!"

"I told you--"

Birkoff ignored them. He had seen the woman in the other room, and, spellbound, he walked to the glass. Softly, "Is that her?"

Nikita moved to stand beside him. "Yes." She didn't need to ask if he knew her. A tiny smile brushed his lips. The hurt in his eyes said the rest.

"That's her," he whispered. "That's my mom." Slowly, he reached to her, first fingertips, then palm against the glass. He closed his eyes for a second, then lowered his hand. With the hiss and a pop like an old 45, he heard fiddles, and the honeyed twang of a western swing guitar. He whispered, “Her favorite song was ‘I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry’.” He closed his eyes and remembered her dancing in the living room in the red dress she always wore on Saturday nights, gardenias behind one ear, and he could smell her as she hugged him goodnight, smell the forever-joined scents of face powder and gardenia that he always associated with the idea of motherhood. A forlorn vibrato he thought he’d forgotten if he ever knew it began to sing, “Hear the lonesome whippoorwill, he sounds too blue to fly . . .” He turned to Michael. "Why . . .?”

Michael put a hand on Birkoff's elbow. "Leave. Now." For a second, Birkoff glimpsed a soul. "Don't tell. We'll---" he glanced at Nikita, "We'll handle this."

Birkoff thought for a moment. Michael was right. If Operations or Madeline ever found out . . . "No . . ." Then, “No.” He squared his shoulders. "I want to see her. Find out why . . ."

Michael sighed, and blinked, and wished this would go away. "We cannot protect you if you stay," he whispered.

Birkoff nodded. “I think—I think I’ve been protected enough for one lifetime.”

**********

Inside the interrogation room, Operations was beginning to doubt who was extracting information from whom. After listening to an exhaustive treatise on the merits of dining facilities in fine mental institutions throughout the Great Lakes States, Madeline asked, "So, do you have family?"

"A family?"

"Yes, a family. Parents, husband, children . . ."

Babe smiled ruefully. "I had parents. And four husbands."

"Children?" Operations stopped pacing. Now they were getting to the heart of the matter. What he wanted, needed, to know.

Babe trembled. "Why? What do you care about that? You're drug police, not the Welfare." She began twisting in her chair. “I want to go home. Now.”

Madeline remained calm. "We just want to know whom to contact. Do you have children?"

"Yes." Babe's response was meek.

"Girls? Boys?"

"Three girls. Cleopatra, Calliope, and Cassiopeia. But they're somewhere else now. In foster homes, at least the little two and they won't let me see them. The oldest ran away. I don't know where she is, either. "

"Oh," Madeline said. "Three little girls. No boys?"

Babe was shaking. She ran her hand through her hair, and yanked at a lock. "Can I have a cigarette, please?"

"Did you have a little boy?" This question was not from the ever-patient Madeline. Operations hissed into her ear. "Did you?"

She nodded. "I need a cigarette really, really bad." Operations offered her his cigarette case. Babe was trembling so much she scattered them across the table. She scrambled after them, hoping her success would get the police off this line of questioning. She stuffed them pell-mell back into the gold box, except one. When she looked up at the man, she knew she hadn’t been successful. “I—I need a light.”

Operations drew out his lighter, flicked the flint, and that quick, Babe saw in his eyes the flames of Perdition. The wrath of an angry God.

So easy, he thought, holding the lighter steady while she tried to quell her shaking enough to ease her cigarette into the flame. So easy, just a flick of the wrist and that cheap polyester uniform would ignite, melting and stinking, and she would know what she had done, and she would hurt, hurt like she had hurt her kid, and she would scream and scream, like napalmed children, like the pilot in the cell next to his had, scream and scream in agony, in anguish, in mortal, eternal torturous pain. She would scream and scream, and he could hear it now, screaming that would never end . . .

He blinked, and it stopped. He held the flame steady while Babe eased the cigarette into the fire. She drew deeply, then exhaled in a long, sated, sybaritic sigh.

“You were telling me about your son,“ Madeline prompted. She had opposed this interrogation. Better to either return the woman—with minor modifications—or cancel her outright. But Operations had insisted, as he rarely did in matters of concomitant collateral. He wanted to know what made this woman tick. What she feared, and how that fear could be twisted. He wanted her soul. Madeline sighed. He had always been far, far too external in his emotions, a problem she thought that he had learned to control. She would have to speak with him later. “Your son,” she said again.

Babe regarded Madeline through half-closed eyes. “Yessss. . .”

“His name is Seymour?”

Babe laughed. “Of course not! What kind of idiot would name their kid Seymour?” She shook her head. “His name was Serendipity—that means finding a good thing you didn’t know you were looking for. My dad just called him Seymour like a nickname or a joke.”

“Serendipity? A joke?” Operations roared. She could see the flames blazing again in his eyes, and Babe began to feel afraid. She didn’t think they were drug police at all. She took a quick few hits of nicotine.

“I think I need a cigarette, too,” he rumbled, and snatched up his jacket and left.

Operations was two strides out the door when he saw Birkoff at the window. “Michael! I told you—“

Nikita stepped between Operations and Michael. “It’s not Michael’s fault. I told Birkoff. I brought him here.”

“What the hell right do you---“ Operations began.

“He deserves to know—“ Nikita growled.

“Did you see her? Hear her? Do you understand what she is? Who the hell needs to know—“

“He does. If you’d once come up out of this self-imposed tomb and trying looking at honest-to-God human beings in the light of day—“

“Don’t tell me about God or human beings. I’ve seen more destruction at the hands of both than---“

“Shut up! Shut up, shut up, shut up!” Both Nikita and Operations stopped, and looked at Birkoff. “Shut up, both of you!” Michael folded his arms and leaned back against the wall. “Quit fighting! This isn’t about you or you. It’s about me and about her, and I’m sick of everyone making decisions for me, protecting me, hiding things from me for my own good.” He glared at Operations. “You weren’t going to tell me you found her, were you?”

Operations opened his mouth to answer, but Birkoff said, “Don’t bother. I’ve heard ‘em all before. ‘Acceptable collateral’. ‘Unnecessary exposure’. ‘Unacceptable Risks’. I know the drill.” Nikita was beginning to look smug when he turned to her. “And you. What right do you have to breach security? To put Michael in this kind of position? He’s done nothing but cover your ass since day one—“

“Look, Birkoff, I thought—“

“Yeah, well you thought wrong, babe.” He regarded the two with disgust. “You,” he pointed to Operations, “Forget the smoke break. Find out why she—“ His voice broke. “Why she did what she did.” He swiped his eyes fiercely with his sleeve. “You,” he focused on Nikita, “You—you stay here. Just—just in case.”

Grumbling, Operations reentered the room. At Madeline’s puzzled look, he growled, “Plans change. Continue.”

Nikita moved to stand by Birkoff at the window. “I’m sorry,” she said, patting his arm.

He stood hardened by anger for a moment. “Better be,” he muttered. “As soon as Operations gets over being stunned, he’s going to cancel me.”

“I doubt it. He’s going to cancel me first; you’re way down the list.” She grinned at him, and he smiled back, a bit, then began watching what was happening in the other room.

Madeline picked up Operations’ cue and began pushing. She slid the ashtray to the far end of the table. “Time’s up.”

“What do you mean?”

“Time is up. We want to know what you did with your little boy.” Madeline’s mouth formed a moue of distaste. “Serendipity.”

Babe began fidgeting. “Nothing.”

“Don’t lie to me.” The Ice Queen was holding court.

“I—I’m not . . .”

Madeline leaned forward. Operations leaned back. Madeline placed one well-manicured nail-tip beneath Babe’s chin and studied her eyes. She swallowed. “You are.”

Babe began trembling. “I really, really do not want to discuss this.”

“What you want is irrelevant.” Operations leaned in beside her, his voice a provocative susurration. “Did you even care if he lived or died when you abandoned him? Did you ever even look back—think of looking back—when you walked out of that bus station?”

“Stop . . .” Babe clapped her hands to her ears, rocking feverishly, eyes clamped shut to hold in the tears. “Stop!”

But Operations would not. This was the question he wanted answered. “Did you?” She shook her head violently. “Did you ever even care what happened to him? Think about him? Wonder if he were dead or hurt or the victim of some inhuman animal . . .”

“No! Stop! I don’t remember. I don’t know . . . he just was gone . . . I don’t remember . . . “ She looked up and met his eyes. “He was just so good . . . so smart . . . so special. I didn’t know what to do. “ She sobbed. “Everybody said he deserved better. I just didn’t know how to be better . . . Whatever happened, it was for the best. I know. It had to be . . .” She looked up at him, face streaked by mascara-laden tears. “Please, can we stop? I don’t know any more.”

Operations never broke the gaze. In a very small place in the pit of his gut, something that in other people would be called compassion stirred. “Okay. I’ll stop.” His voice was very soft.

Equally softly, “Can I go home now?”

Operations and Madeline exchanged glances. “In a few days,” Madeline said.

“I have rights! I want to go home now! I have the right to—“

“The only right you have, “ Madeline replied, “is to leave here on a slab.”

“You said I could go home, you said—you lied! You lied!” Babe leaped to her feet. “You lied! I hate liars! I hate them, hate them, hate them!” She hurled her chair at the mirror. Star-shattered safety glass held, and she launched herself at it, bashing her head and fists into the broken mirror, “You lied! You’re all liars, liars, liars . . .” Her voice rose to a feral wail. Operations scrambled to stop her, and she swung at him. He grabbed and pinned her arms, but she kicked and squirmed and stretched her neck enough to clamp her teeth firmly on his forearm. Michael hit the intercom, yelled for MedLab, and ran to help him. Raging, Babe slashed Michael’s face with her nails, blood and bits of broken glass spattering them both like jewels before the two men restrained her enough that the arriving doctor could sedate her.

Madeline stood and watched the drugs take effect, Babe still resisting, lying on the floor and panting in short, quick breaths, unable to do more. She watched the doctor dab antiseptic on Michael’s cheek and wrap Operations arm. Then she turned and looked through the splintered one-way mirror and met Birkoff’s eyes. Nikita shuddered.

“Come on, Birkoff.” She pulled on his arm. He didn’t need to see this. Hell, she didn’t need to see this.

“No.” He refused to move, watching as Michael and the doctor moved his mother to the cot. She looked small and frail. Tears began to sting his eyes.

Madeline came into the observation room. Birkoff’s eyes remained fixed on the figure on the cot. “She’s—she’s crazy, isn’t she?”

Madeline nodded. “She’s ill.” Michael and Operations were consulting with the doctor in low tones, nodding their heads in Babe’s direction.

“Will she get better?”

“With proper medication, she’ll be able to return to her life at the group home and work at the diner.”

“But—“

“No. That’s as good as she’ll ever be.” Madeline put a hand on Birkoff’s shoulder. “She’ll never be well.”

“She wasn’t always like that.”

Nikita thought she saw something strange in Madeline’s eyes: compassion. “No, I’m sure she wasn’t. “

“But how—“

“I don’t know. It’s just something that happens in some people’s brain chemistry.”

“Just like that?” Nikita asked.

Madeline remained impassive. “This is not the appropriate venue—“

“The hell its not,” Nikita snapped.

Madeline settled her face into her usual mask. “Sometimes there is a genetic component.”

“Genetic?” Nikita said. The light dawned. “So he could--”

“He doesn’t.”

“You know this,” Nikita challenged. “You’ve tested him--”

Madeline glared at Nikita. “There is no test. Only observation. And so far--”

“So far?” Nikita’s eyes blazed.

“So far Mr. Birkoff has exhibited no signs of any mental disorder.”

Nikita snorted. “How could you tell in Section? Everyone here is mentally--”

“Nikita,” Birkoff said quietly. “It’s okay.” He turned to Madeline. “So what you were saying about genetics and so far . . .”

“So far, you’re fine. And every day that passes without symptom. . passes.“

“So you don’t know.” Nikita shouldered in. “You don’t know. And when will he be in the clear?”

“Brain chemistry doesn’t punch a time clock.”

Birkoff, agitated, began to reach for a strand of hair to pull.

“No, I don’t.” Madeline put her hand under his chin, raised his eyes to hers. “Do you remember when you came here why we cut your hair so short?” He closed his eyes and nodded. He remembered how chagrined Madeline had been when she discovered that, when stressed, he had a nervous habit of pulling out his own hair. “Then stop.” Her voice was gentle, gentler than Nikita had ever heard it. “You can stop. It’s just a habit, nothing more. ” She dropped her hand to his elbow, and steered him to the door. “Come with me to my office. We’ll talk.”

“Madeline.” Nikita’s voice stopped them. “What about his mother? What are you going to do with her?”

A smile fluttered her lips. “Just what we planned. Release her in the area of her home in a few days, where she’ll be found and returned to the group home. They’ll believe she became disoriented in the attack on the diner and wandered away.”

“That’s all?”

“No one will believe the fantastic story of an unmedicated schizophrenic. Our exposure is nullified.” They left, and Nikita turned as Michael and Operations entered the observation room.

“Madeline took Birkoff to her office.”

“Good.” That was Michael.

Silence fell as Operations and Nikita glared at each other. To Michael, “I’ll be in my office.” He got to the door, glared back at Nikita, and snapped, “I’m very glad no one was martyred to your compassion.”

When he left, Nikita regarded Michael. “And what about you?”

“What?”

“Should I have minded my own business? Spared Birkoff all the suffering he’s going to face?”

Michael picked a point at the left-hand corner of the shattered mirror, directly over her left shoulder, and studied it. Finally, he said, “I don’t know.”

“That’s it? You don’t know?”

The spot retained his attention. “No.” He thought a moment longer, then the spot lost all interest to him, and he placed each the tip of each index finger precisely behind her ears, his other fingers causing tiny shivers all down her neck. “But I do know that now Birkoff will need all his friends.”

She nodded and wondered, not first the first time, at what Section had wrought.

**********

His room was dark and still, and so was he. He lay on his bed, hugging himself inside an old bomber jacket he couldn’t remember getting. He lay there, and he thought. He thought about his life, in Section and before. Again guitars crept in, and fiddles, low and sad. He thought about his mom, all those years ago, like a black and white movie, an old record. He thought and couldn’t remember anything more than those few images, her scent, her music . . . He thought about her now, sedated, lonesome, and scared up in Intake. He thought about all the times over the past several years when he had been lonesome and scared, how he had wanted to feel her arms around him, to smell her powder and gardenia scent . . .

Nikita knocked on his door. He didn’t answer. He thought about Nikita and how she had only meant well. She always meant well. He thought about whether meaning well was enough . . .

Walter knocked on his door, pounded really. He didn’t answer. Walter pounded more and pleaded with him, then yelled, then cajoled, bribed, threatened, and tempted. Walter railed, pounded more, then pleaded again. Finally, blissful silence . . .

Michael knocked on his door. He didn’t answer. At least he assumed it was Michael, because no one called out his name or demanded that he opened the door. Just a simple knock, then he was left alone to his thoughts and his pain . . .

Operations knocked on his door. He didn’t answer. Operations didn’t expect him to. He just came in anyway, into the dark, into the silence. He found a chair beside the bed and sat. Birkoff could tell it was Operations by the mingled scent of smoke and subtle cologne spices. Operations said nothing, just sat. Birkoff said nothing, lying on his side, staring through the darkness at the wall.

They remained like that for a very long time. Finally, thinking Birkoff had drifted off to sleep, Operations pulled a blanket up over him. He stood then a few seconds in the dark, thinking. Regretting. Wishing. Then he turned and left.

And Birkoff lay there, in the still and the dark, and he listened to the guitars and fiddles of his childhood, and he thought . . .

I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry

By Hank Williams

Hear that lonesome whippoorwill
He sounds too blue to fly.
The midnight train is whinin’ low
I’m so lonesome I could cry.

I never seen a night so long
When time goes crawlin’ by.

The moon just went behind the clouds
To hide its face and cry.

D’you ever see a robin weep
When leaves begin to die?
That means he’s lost the will to live
I’m so lonesome I could cry.

The silence of a fallin’ star
Lights up a purple sky
And as I wonder where you are
I’m so lonesome I could cry.

End

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