I am afraid of getting older … I am afraid of getting married. Spare me from cooking three meals a day—spare me from the relentless cage of routine and rote. I want to be free…. I want, I want to think, to be omniscient…. I think I would like to call myself ‘The girl who wanted to be God.

I do not love; I do not love anybody except myself. That is a rather shocking thing to admit.

The hardest thing, I think, is to live richly in the present, without letting it be tainted & spoiled out of fear for the future or regret for a badly-managed past.

But I am I now; and so many other millions are so irretrievably their own special variety of 'I' that I can hardly bear to think of it. I: how firm a letter; how reassuring the three strokes: one vertical, proud and assertive, and then the two short horizontal lines in quick, smug succession. The pen scratching on the paper…I…I…I…I…I…I.

That is salvation. To give of love inside. To keep love of life, no matter what, and give to others. Generously.

Spiderlike, I spin mirrors, Loyal to my image.

I tried to speak in a cool, calm way, but the zombie rose up in my throat and choked me off.