When do you give up on people?

One answer among others: when the haze of lies gets so thick, there’s no point in trying to clear the air for anything reasonable to emerge.

So, two full months of my time and that of several other people, money (mine and that of others), help in every guise imaginable, not to mention the countless aggravations and medical emergencies, should come to an end this morning. I put italics on the word should because this is a couple with a huge reservoir of rebounds. No, they are not fictional characters although they often come off as live embodiments of characters in the less sugar-coated versions of the Grimms’ collection of fairy tales.

As a friend of mine concluded last night at some point past eleven, and prior to some kind of evening meal: does this mean we give up on helping people in dire straits? No, it means we give up trying to help this couple – with immense regrets for their two children and a very sick old woman. (In the larger picture, I also hope to recover my two precious and only suitcases; I loaned them in her hour of need to the woman “fleeing” from her husband. But I’ll probably have to chalk those up  in the losses too.)

Battered women often return to their abuser? Yes. But in this Punch and Judy show, there’s no telling who’s who. There’s only tallying up the scoreboard on both sides of the physical and verbal slug fests. At any rate, I’ll clear my phone from the slew of harassing phone calls, with my head still spinning over the panoramic array of outright lies and mis-representations put together by Madame and Monsieur in their mad tumble from bad to ever worse.

*while attempting to stay clear of the wreckage.

(I post a quiet illustration of fall greenery as an antidote and counterpoint to the craziness.)