Women aren't very bright," Rip says. "Studies have been done.

I could stay living in this city if they just installed Blaupunkts in the cabs.

But this was what happened when you didn't want to visit and confront the past: the past starts visiting and confronting you.

Rock 'n' roll. Deal with it.

I needed something--the distraction of another life--to alleviate fear.

A curtain of stars, miles of them, are scattered, glowing, across the sky and their multitude humbles me, which I have a hard time tolerating. She shrugs and nods after I say something about forms of anxiety. It's as if her mind is having a hard time communicating with her mouth, as if she is searching for a rational analysis of who I am, which is, of course, an impossibility: there... is... no... key.

A great numb feeling washes over me as I let go of the past and look forward to the future. Pretend to be a vampire. I don't really need to pretend, because it's who I am, an emotional vampire. I've just come to expect it. Vampires are real. That I was born this way. That I feed off of other people's real emotions. Search for this night's prey. Who will it be?