He Saw That No One

At The Back Of My Mind I Had A Sense Of Us Sitting About Waiting For Some Terrible Event, And Then I Would Remember That It Had Already Happened.

I Read In Announcements Of Deaths 'peacefully In His Sleep' And I Wonder How Many Of Those Are True. Maybe They Are Just Conventional. I Hope They Are True Whenever I Read It Of Someone. [but] I Would Rather Be Awake. Peacefully Awake, Brim Full Of Some Calming Drug That Was Seeing Me Out Of The Door, Having Said My Farewells.

And Feeling Clever, I've Always Thought, Is Just A Sigh Away From Being Cheerful.

This Commonplace Cycle Of Falling Asleep And Waking, In Darkness, Under Private Cover, With Another Creature, A Pale Soft Tender Mammal, Putting Faces Together In A Ritual Of Affection, Briefly Settled In The Eternal Necessities Of Warmth, Comfort, Safety, Crossing Limbs To Draw Nearer - A Simple Daily Consolation, Almost Too Obvious, Easy To Forget By Daylight.

By Measuring Individual Human Worth, The Novelist Reveals The Full Enormity Of The State