What wonderful thing didn't start out scary?

Maybe this is why I sleep only a few hours a month. I don't want to die again. This has become clearer and clearer to me recently, a desire so sharp and focused I can hardly believe it's mine: I don't want to die. I don't want to disappear. I want to stay.

We smile, because this is how we save the world.

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.

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 feel an unfamiliar but pleasant sensation in my lips, tugging them upward. This is... new.

What a massive responsibility, being a moral creature