Sleep,” he says. “I'll fight the bad dreams off if they come to get you.” “With what?” “My bare hands, obviously.

Four sits down on the edge of the carousel, leaning against a plastic horse's foot. His eyes lift to the sky, where there are no stars, only a round moon peking through a thin layer of clouds. The muscles in his arms are relaxed; his hand rests on the back of his neck. He looks almost comfortable, holding that gun to his shoulder. I close my eyes briefly. Why does he distract me so easily? I need to focus.

I don't want to stop you. I want you to stop yourself.

But I will find new habits, new thoughts, new rules. I will become something else.

Everything - our houses, our clothes, our hairstyles - is meant to help us forget ourselves and to protect us from vanity, greed and envy, which are just forms of selfishness. If we have little, and want for little, and we are all equal, we envy no one.

Human reason can excuse any evil.

I breathe in. The water will wash my wounds clean. I breathe out. My mother submerged me in water when I was a baby, to give me to God. It has been a long time since I thought about God, but I think about him now. It is only natural. I am glad, suddenly, that I shot Eric in the foot instead of the head.