We are where we are, however we got here. What matters is where we go next.

I wonder how well she sleeps at night, and what kind of dreams she has. I wish I could step into them like she steps into mine.

I'm not a general or a colonel or a builder of cities. I'm just a corpse who wants not to be.

Writing isn't letters on paper. It's communication. It's memory.

And yet ... But what if ... I want to do something impossible. Something astounding and unheard of. I want to scrub the moss off the Space Shuttle and fly Julie to the moon and colonise it, or float a capsized cruise ship to some distant island where no one will protest us, or just harness the magic that brings me into the brains of the Living and use it to bring Julie into mine, because it's warm in here, it's quiet and lovely, and in here we aren't an absurd juxtaposition, we are perfect.

What a massive responsibility, being a moral creature

My "heart". Does that pitiful organ still represent anything? It lies motionless in my chest, pumping no blood, serving no purpose, and yet my feelings still seem to originate inside its cold walls. My muted sadness, my vague longing, my rare flickers of joy. They pool in the center of my chest and seep out of there, diluted and faint, but real.