I loved Molly. Or at least I told myself I did. Or, if what I felt for her was not love, it was at least a plausible imitation, a convincing substitute.

What had been released into the desert vacuum and starry oases of the galaxy was the inexorable logic of reproduction and natural selection. What followed was parasitism, predation, symbiosis, interdependency chaos, complexity, life.

To fire a bullet into the heart or brains of one's fellow man even a fellow man striving to do the same to you creates what might be called an unassimilable memory: a memory that floats on daily life the way an oil stain floats on rainwater. Stir the rain barrel, scatter the oil into countless drops, disperse it all you like, but it will not mix; and eventually the slick comes back, as loathsomely intact as it ever was.

Along with a dozen other students I had dissected a human cadaver and sorted its contents by size, color, function, and weight. There was nothing pleasant about the experience. Its only consolation was its truth and its only virtue was its utility.

Some things are taken away from you, some you leave behind and some you carry with you, world without end.

If I am an agnostic, Calyxa, it's because I'm also a realist.

The world is what it is and won't be bargained with.