Sen bana sorsan söyleyemem mesela, sebeplerimi sorsan, yaptığım şeyleri neden yapmış olduğumu sorsam sana söyleyemem, kimseye söyleyemem sanırım.

Yaptığım şeyleri neden yaptığımı bilmediğimden değil, yaptığım şeylerin sebeplerini biliyorum, lakin kendime bile söylememeyi tercih ediyorum, bunu ben böyle yapıyorum, çünkü ben kendimle böyle yaşayabiliyorum.

Kendine aynada bakmak ile alakası yok mevzunun, ben aynada bile kendime bakmayı tercih etmezdim senin yerinde olsaydım. Gerçi ben daha kötü durumdayım, bak İngilizce yazmıyorum bu sefer bunu mesela.

Çaresizlik çok kötü, çaresizlik çok fena.

Hal böyle olunca elimden bir şey gelmiyor gerçekten, kendimle ilgili, başkasıyla ilgili, elimden hiç bir şey gelmiyor, alışkanlık değil, gerçekten öyle.

Anlatmak ve yazmak istediğim çok şey var aslında da ne bileyim, olmuyor artık, ellerim ve beynim kireçlenmiş gibi, eskisi gibi yazmıyorum, insanları eskisi gibi dinlemiyorum, eskisi gibi değil çoğu şey, ben de değilim tabii.

Keşke ben kendimi senin kandırdığın gibi kandırabilsem, burada bunu derken senin beni kandırdığın gibi kandırmaktan bahsediyorum, yoksa ben kendimi kandırmam.

Gerçekten.

Bazen o kadar fazla sorun oluyor ki kahverengi dalgalı saçlı güzel kadınlar bile kurtaramıyor seni.

Çoğu şeyi bilmiyorum, bilmediğini farketmek güzel, boşluk güzel, bunun farkına vardığında rahatlıyorsun.

Toparlanamadı siktiğimin dünyası, hala toparlanamadı.

Alekan looked at me, her ebony features stark against the snow that surrounded us. There was fear and pleading in her manner, the way she held herself ready. I knew we had only a heartbeat before Orexis would stop us.It struck her and she folded toward me, bleeding from the mouth. I could not read meaning into her expression, the pain had been too great, had contorted her face; but it might have been thank you. It's possible. Please.

Some hundreds of years may have passed. I don't know. Orexis has been having fun for some time, accelerating and retarding my time sense. I will say the word now. Now. It took me ten months to say now. I don't know. I think it has been some hundreds of years.

He was furious. He wouldn't let me bury them. It didn't matter. There was no way to dig up the deckplates. He dried up the snow. He brought the night. He roared and sent locusts. It didn't do a thing; they stayed dead. I'd had him. He was furious. I had thought Orexis hated me before. I was wrong. It was not even a shadow of the hate he now slavered from every printed circuit. He made certain I would suffer eternally and could not do myself in.He left my mind intact. I can dream, I can wonder, I can lament. I remember all four of them. I wish—Well, it doesn't make any sense. I know I saved them, I know I saved them from what has happened to me, but still, I cannot forget killing them. Alekan's face. It isn't easy. Sometimes I want to, it doesn't matter.Orexis has altered me for his own peace of mind, I suppose. He doesn't want me to run at full speed into a computer bank and smash my skull. Or hold my breath till I faint. Or cut my throat on a rusted sheet of metal. There are reflective surfaces down here. I will describe myself as I see myself: I am a great soft jelly thing. Smoothly rounded, with no mouth, with pulsing white holes filled by fog where my eyes used to be. Rubbery appendages that were once my arms; bulks rounding down into legless humps of soft slippery matter. I leave a moist trail when I move. Blotches of diseased, evil gray come and go on my surface, as though light is being beamed from within.Outwardly: dumbly, I shamble about, a thing that could never have been known as human, a thing whose shape is so alien a travesty that humanity becomes more obscene for the vague resemblance.Inwardly: alone. Here. Living under the land, under the sea, in the belly of him, whom we created because our time was badly spent and we must have known unconsciously that he could do it better. At least the four of them are safe at last.AM will be all the madder for that. It makes me a little happier. And yet … Orexis has won, simply … he has taken his revenge …I have no mouth. And I must scream.