Even in my bravest moment, I am a coward.

Now I’m just standing here on the conveyor. Along for the ride. I reach the end, turn around, and go back the other way. The world has been distilled. Being dead is easy. After a few hours of this, I notice a female on the opposite conveyor. She doesn’t lurch or groan like most of us. Her head just lolls from side to side. I like that about her. That she doesn’t lurch or groan. I catch her eye and stare at her.

The sports arena Julie calls home is unaccountably large, perhaps one of those dual-event 'super venues' built for an era when the greatest quandary facing the world was where to put all the parties.

I don't want to hear music, I don't want the sunrise to be pink. The world is a liar. Its ugliness is overwhelming; the scraps of beauty make it worse.

There is no ideal world for you to wait around for. The world is always just what it is now, and it's up to you how you respond to it.

She gathers my half of the blankets around her and curls up against the wall. She will sleep for hours more, dreaming endless landscapes and novas of colour both gorgeous and frightening. If I stayed she would wake up and describe them to me. All the mad plot twists and surrealist imagery, so vivid to her while so meaningless to me. There was a time when I treasured listening to her, when I found the commotion in her soul bitter-sweet and lovely, but I can no longer bear it.

But I'm not afraid of the skeletons in Julie's closet. I look forward to meeting the rest of them, looking them hard in the eye, giving them firm, bone-crunching handshakes.