Don't pretend to care. I don't need you as an anesthetic.

And in bed, deep inside the building, are all the headaches that won't go away. The failed kidneys, the rashes, the ragged-edged moles, the lumps on the breast, the coughs that have turned nasty. In the Marie Curie Ward on the fourth floor are the kids with cancer. Their bodies secretly and slowly being consumed. And then there's the mortuary, where the dead lie in refrigerated drawers with name tags on their feet.

Every breath, every heartbeat, was one less until maybe things stopped hurting this much.

That slow smile again. I love that smile! DId I think he was ugly just now? No, his face is transformed.

I'm me and you're you, and all of them out there are them. And we're all so different and equally unimportant.

Three points for the dead slowly prising open the lids of their coffins. They want to hunt the living. They can't stop. Their throats have turned to liquid and their fingers glint under the weak autumn sun.

I've always wanted to be a cat. Warm and domesticated when you want to be, wild when you don't.