Idumea

idumea/book.tex

@@ -258,23 +258,23 @@ But you are eternity and you are the mirror.
   \markboth{Idumea}{Madison Rye Progress}
   
   \addcontentsline{toc}{part}{Idumea}
-  \chapter*{}
+  \chapter*{×}
   \input{content/001}
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   \input{content/009} \input{graphomania}\normalfont
 
   \newpage
@@ -285,7 +285,7 @@ But you are eternity and you are the mirror.
   \vfill
   
   \begin{center}
-  \Huge ×\label{x}
+  \noindent\Huge ×\label{x}
   \end{center}
 
   \vfill
@@ -293,6 +293,8 @@ But you are eternity and you are the mirror.
   \cleardoublepage
   
   \backmatter
+  \pagestyle{plain}
+
   %\singlespacing
 
   \Char{Afterword}

idumea/content/001.tex

@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ Once upon a time there was--\label{pinocchio}
 
 No, children, you are mistaken. Once upon a time, there was a woman. She was not a fine woman, not a prize to adorn your arm or to set beside you at the head of a grand table, but a simple woman—the kind we pass on the street and imagine some plain home life for. She has a house, one might think. There are floors and walls and windows, there are tables and chairs and sofas and beds. There is a shower and a claw-footed bathtub. There is a creaky step—the eighth—that she always swears she will fix.
 
-We must imagine such a woman happy. We must imagine that she has friends and that she goes and drinks okay wine or maybe strange cocktails with them at the most absurd bars. We must imagine that she comes home, wobbling slightly with each step, with some other simple woman on her arm. We must imagine sharing their kisses, being happy together.
+We must imagine such a woman happy. We must imagine that she has friends and that she goes and drinks okay wine or maybe strange cocktails with them at the most absurd bars. We must imagine that she comes home, wobbling slightly with each step, with some other simple woman on her arm. We must imagine them sharing their kisses, being happy together.
 
 We must imagine these things because they are not true.
 
@@ -14,15 +14,15 @@ But that was three hundred years ago.
 
 \secdiv
 
-The Woman wanders the world some few times a month, stepping out into unknown nowheres and known somewheres to be seen, to be perceived as still existing. I do not know why, but it is important to her that someone witness her existing. It is a ritual she follows around like a little puppy: she will not know what will happen when she first does it properly, but she hopes it will be something wonderful.
+The Woman wanders the world some few times a month, stepping out into unknown nowheres and known somewheres to be seen, to be perceived as still existing. I do not know why, but it is important to her that someone witness her existing. It is a striving, an aiming for perfection, a ritual she follows around like a little puppy: she will not know what will happen when she first does it properly, but she hopes it will be something wonderful.
 
 The Woman has many rituals.
 
-She has rituals for eating food, for feeding the vessel in which she makes her home. There is no order in which she properly consumes food, she may consume it in any order, but there is an order in which she must appreciate food. You must understand: she must do this for everything she takes into her body. She must look at it before she touches it, must touch it before she smells it, must smell it before she eats it, and before all of these she must say a prayer.
+She has rituals for eating food, for feeding the vessel in which she makes her home. There is no order in which she properly consumes food, she may consume it in any order, but there is an order in which she must appreciate food. You must understand: she has to do this for everything she takes into her body. She must look at it before she touches it, must touch it before she smells it, must smell it before she eats it, and before all of these she must say a prayer.
 
 She has rituals for getting dressed, for clothing the form with which the world sees her. She must choose a garment that fits her body and one that fits her mood. You must understand: every time she gets dressed, there is a moment of scrying into her deepest self and estimating how it is that she feels that day. And should her mood change, should those feelings shift, she will find her clothing itchy and uncomfortable, and if her form becomes not what it once was, her clothing will become uncomfortably tight or perhaps she will disappear down into the folds of fabric.
 
-She has rituals for entering a room, for passing through a door. She must touch the door frame beside her shoulder, must brush her fingers against the wood or stone or metal or some more abstract substance. You must understand: she has to do this for every door she walks through, and for this reason, there is a door in the house where she lives that was built by a friend of Her Friend that leads directly out into a city. She opens the closet door and steps out onto a concrete sidewalk lined with trees and passers by, where the sun shines bright and the air burns cold in her nostrils and the dry leaves skitter anxiously about her feet. As she steps out, she can brush her hand to the door jamb.
+She has rituals for entering a room, for passing through a door. She must touch the door frame beside her shoulder, must brush her fingers against the wood or stone or metal or some more abstract substance. You must understand: she has to do this for every door she walks through, and for this reason, there is a door in the house where she lives that was built by a friend of Her Friend that leads directly out into a city. She opens the closet door and steps out onto a concrete sidewalk lined with trees and passers-by, where the sun shines bright and the air burns cold in her nostrils and the dry leaves skitter anxiously about her feet. As she steps out, she can brush her hand to the door jamb.
 
 I do not know where these rituals come from, and perhaps some of my readers will immediately say, ``OCD? Does The Woman have obsessive compulsive disorder?''
 
@@ -88,7 +88,7 @@ And after that, they would go to the rest of the party at the home of the tenth
 
 I think you would like to see these parties, friends. I think that they would not be quite as you would expect, of course. They are not the kinds of birthday parties that you or I might have. Where we might have cakes and singing and the blowing out of candles, they would gather together over simple foods—so many from the tenth stanza had such sensitive tastes, and it was so easy to make sure that everyone could eat everything!—and often they would simply sit silent. They would sit there, quiet, but present in each other's company.
 
-They would not seem to be parties like you and I have because this was not all that different from what might happen once or twice a month at the house in which the tenth stanza all lived. While each lived their own lives, occasionally, their schedules would coincide and they would all sit down together at the giant oak table together and eat, mostly in silence.
+They would not seem to be parties like you and I have perhaps because this was not all that different from what might happen once or twice a month at the house in which the tenth stanza all lived. While each lived their own lives, occasionally, their schedules would coincide and they would all sit down together at the giant oak table together and eat, mostly in silence.
 
 Some of them shared rooms, you see, but mostly, they kept to themselves. They lived together in that big Gothic house plopped right down in the middle of a prairie of green grass and yellow dandelions, out where the stoop stepped down directly into the field, but I say `lived together' in a very mechanical sense. They never shared meals intentionally, nor even spoke all that often to each other. It is just that, sometimes, they would all find themselves at table at the same time!
 

idumea/content/002.tex

@@ -2,15 +2,15 @@ The Woman decided to go walking one day. Perhaps she was driven by restlessness.
 
 Either way, she was feeling good and she was feeling stable and she was feeling feline, so she found herself a nice set of slacks to wear over her legs, ones that looped up over the base of her tail in such a way that the same would be just as possible with a skunk's tail, and yet which would not fall down for those moments when she did not have a tail.
 
-She found herself a nice shirt that felt good on the fur and which would not look too weird if she poofed out into a skunk. It was not her favorite shirt, I am sure, otherwise maybe she would wear it every day, but it was good enough. It had the word `fiend' scribbled across it in angular, glitchy graffiti, and The Woman is absolutely allowed to feel like a fiend some days.
+She found herself a nice shirt that felt good on the fur and which would not look too weird if she poofed out into a skunk. It was not her favorite shirt, I am sure, otherwise maybe she would wear it every day, but she liked it well enough. It had the word `fiend' scribbled across it in angular, glitchy graffiti, and The Woman is absolutely allowed to feel like a fiend some days.
 
-Thus clothed, The Woman stood for a while in front of the mirror and admired herself. She felt good. She felt good, reader! It was not often that she felt more than just okay. Because even with all that I wrote about before, her life was not bad. It was an okay life. She liked this life in her own way. Her thoughts on unbecoming were not thoughts on suicide, I do not think.
+Thus gussied, The Woman stood for a while in front of the mirror and admired herself. She felt good. She felt good, reader! It was not often that she felt more than just okay. Because even with all that I wrote about before, her life was not bad. It was an okay life. She liked this life in her own way. Her thoughts on unbecoming were not thoughts on suicide, I do not think.
 
 She stood before the mirror and primped for a moment, adjusting the way her shirt sat and fluffing out her slacks to see how they might fit with a thicker coat. She combed her claws through her short fur to straighten out some mussed-up spots and ensured that her whiskers were all neat and in those rows that cats have that she always found fascinating.
 
 The trip to the city was as it ever was. She said to herself a little prayer and opened the door to her closet. Taking a deep breath, she stepped through, and as she did so, she brushed her fingertips against the jamb as ever, against some imagined \emph{mezuzah,} and today it felt right enough that she stepped lively out onto the city streets, out where the leaves skittered anxiously around her footpaws in the faint February breeze.
 
-Stuffing her paws into her pockets, she made her way down the street where her entrance was located to the main drag. The city was on the small end—more large town than full on city—and so it was still the type of place to have a main drag, a street built for cars that it does not actually have, with wide sidewalks paved in brick and a trolley that ran down the middle.
+Stuffing her paws into her pockets, she made her way down the street on which her entrance was located to the main drag. The city was on the small end—more large town than full on city—and so it was still the type of place to have a main drag, a street built for cars that it does not actually have, with wide sidewalks paved in brick and a trolley that ran down the middle.
 
 The Woman waited for the next trolley car to come and stepped aboard, tucking her tail down and around her leg as she held onto one of the railings—she never sat, and never could tell you why—to ride it for three stops. This was part of the ritual. Even when the car was busy and she was not feeling so good, there was a part of her that was happy that she got to stand on this trolley and hold onto this railing and feel this rattle-buzz of the wheels rolling along the track through her feet or paws. It was not even particularly pleasant for her, I think, but it \emph{was} fulfilling.
 
@@ -26,7 +26,7 @@ The Woman loved a good mocha—even I love a good mocha!—and so she was plenty
 
 That day, The Woman was here because Her Friend had asked to meet up.
 
-This was not how this usually went, you understand. Usually, The Woman was upset and asked for Her Friend to visit her, or perhaps she was out anyway and simply desired company on this errand or that, a friend for dinner or coffee or a walk along the shops to peruse the latest trends in fashion or oneirotecture or sensework. It had ever been the case that The Woman contacted Her Friend, and not the other way around.
+This was not how this usually went, you understand. Usually, The Woman was upset and asked for Her Friend to visit her, or perhaps she was out anyway and simply desired company on this errand or that, a friend for dinner or coffee or a walk along the shops to peruse the latest trends in fashion or oneirotecture or sensework. It was so often the case that The Woman contacted Her Friend, and not the other way around.
 
 Her Friend was always so stable, always so ready to speak and so ready to listen. Ey was the one who had long ago gotten in touch with her, with the whole of the tenth stanza, and started to talk to them and listen to what they had to say. Not the only one, no, but it was important to The Woman that Her Friend had sought her out, had cared enough to seek her out.
 
@@ -54,7 +54,7 @@ Her Friend leaned forward, resting eir arms on the edge of the table. ``Well, I
 
 She laughed. ``Of course, my dear. You are my best.''
 
-Her Friend's smile grew more earnest. ``Thank you. That feels better to hear than I expected.''
+Her Friend's smile grew yet more earnest. ``Thank you. That feels better to hear than I expected.''
 
 ``So, tell me of your moods, then. Tell me why you were uncomfortable and felt the need to speak quietly.''
 
@@ -90,7 +90,7 @@ Her Friend hesitated. ``Yes,'' ey said carefully. ``I said something to In Dream
 
 The Woman's breath caught in her throat.
 
-When I tell you that breath is important even sys-side, you must understand all of the different roles that it plays. We are built to breathe, you and I, and so is everyone else. We can turn that off, sure, but the vast majority of cladists find such uncomfortable. Not Breathing still feels like holding one's breath, yes? Even without the rising CO2 levels in our blood—blood that we must only imagine that we have—it is uncomfortable to feel like one is holding one's breath for too long.
+When I tell you that breath is important even sys-side, you must understand all of the different roles that it plays. We are built to breathe, you and I, and so is everyone else. We can turn that off, sure, but the vast majority of cladists find such uncomfortable. Not breathing still feels like holding one's breath, yes? Even without the rising CO\textsubscript{2} levels in our blood—blood that we must only imagine that we have—it is uncomfortable to feel like one is holding one's breath for too long.
 
 We use breath for speaking, and even though I am not speaking to you right now, I am still breathing. I still feel the warmth of my breath against my paw as it brushes across the page with each line of text. We use breath for gasping, for sighing, for even snoring!
 
@@ -102,7 +102,7 @@ The tenth had left two empty chairs and two full plates at meals until three yea
 
 Now they left three.
 
-Her Friend, either knowing or seeing this, averted eir eyes, casting eir gaze instead out to the street. ``I am sorry, my dear. I was indeed feeling grief and loss over Should We Forget. No Longer Myself as well, yes, and Beckoning and more, but the one I knew best was Should We Forget. I am sorry.''
+Her Friend, either knowing or seeing this, averted eir eyes, casting eir gaze instead out to the street. ``I am sorry, my dear. I was indeed feeling grief and loss over Should We Forget. No Longer Myself as well, yes, and Beckoning and Hammersmith and more, but the one I knew best was Should We Forget. I am sorry.''
 
 The Woman let her breath out most carefully, not letting it shake, not letting her lip quiver. ``I understand, yes. You knew her as well.''
 
@@ -110,11 +110,11 @@ The Woman let her breath out most carefully, not letting it shake, not letting h
 
 She bowed. ``I would appreciate that, yes.''
 
-``Of course, my dear,'' Her Friend said, smiling, nodding eir acknowledgement. ``The fallout of this conversation with In Dreams was that she told me that perhaps I ought to schedule a session, either with her or In Memory, or, failing that, someone outside the clade.''
+``Of course,'' Her Friend said, smiling, nodding eir acknowledgement. ``The fallout of this conversation with In Dreams was that she told me that perhaps I ought to schedule a session, either with her or In Memory, or, failing that, someone outside the clade.''
 
 ``Is that what you wound up doing?''
 
-Ey shook eir head. ``I did not need that, my dear. I did not need to be told to go to therapy. I did not want to schedule an appointment.'' Ey finally took a sip of eir mocha, but this seemed to be less about the coffee than an opportunity to gather eir wits. ``I just wanted a friend, honestly. I just wanted a hug—no, I understand, perhaps not your thing, but I must be earnest, yes? Instead, I got told to find a way to \emph{fix} this. Fix grief. Fix a very real pain.''
+Ey shook eir head. ``I did not need that, my dear. I did not need to be told to go to therapy. I did not want to schedule an appointment.'' Ey finally took a sip of eir mocha, but this seemed to be less about the coffee than an opportunity to gather eir thoughts. ``I just wanted a friend, honestly. I just wanted a hug—no, I understand, perhaps not your thing, but I must be earnest, yes? Instead, I got told to find a way to \emph{fix} this. Fix grief. Fix a very real pain.''
 
 The Woman's features softened and, steeling herself for the touch, she reached across the table to pat the back of Her Friend's paw. ``I understand, No Hesitation. Would that I could offer more. I am happy to be a friend, though; I have no interest in telling you to go to therapy.''
 
@@ -138,7 +138,7 @@ The Woman shrugged.
 
 ``I see,'' she said, buying herself a moment to think by sipping her mocha. Ah, but she was a cat, yes? A panther? Perhaps you can imagine this with lapping tongue, the way a cat's tongue curls back and scoops up drink, drawing it up into their mouth. Or perhaps she is the type who has leaned into another aesthetic, the type who can chew with her mouth closed. Idle distractions, even for your humble narrator. ``Then yes, there is joy in it. There is joy in those memories, is there not? One takes a moment of stillness\ldots{}''
 
-After a long few seconds, Her Friend tilted eir head. ``Yes?''
+After a long few seconds of silence, Her Friend tilted eir head. ``Yes?''
 
 ``Ah, a fleeting thought. One takes a moment of stillness and parks in that quiet joy, even if it is one of separation.''
 
@@ -166,7 +166,7 @@ And so she would cook her meals and walk in widening circles around this primord
 
 These were her joys to go along with the needs of ritual, of brushing her fingers along imagined \emph{mezuzot.} To walk was her ritual, to spiral outward from her home in the warmth of sunlight and the dance of bees and the tickling of dandelions against her ankles was to cast that ritual in the light of pleasure.
 
-I have never been quite so fond of walking, myself, kind readers. There is meditation in it, I am told. I am told there is the simple pleasure of the one-foot-in-front-of-the-other-ness of it. But friends, I am tired most of the time. I am old and I am tired and my pleasure lies in stillness and quiet. I love my mochas and I love sitting down before the page with pen in paw to put to paper, and I love bathing in story.
+I have never been quite so fond of walking, myself, kind readers. There is meditation in it, I am told. I am told there is the simple pleasure of the one-foot-in-front-of-the-other-ness of it. But friends, I am tired most of the time. I am old and I am tired and my pleasure lies in stillness and quiet. I love my mochas and I love sitting down before the page with pen in paw to put to paper and I love bathing in story.
 
 I say so often that stepping away from such a task is still writing. When I sit on the patio in front of our little bundle of townhouses and look out at the shared lawn, or when I step—\emph{stepped,} for it is no longer here—out to the shortgrass prairie of my cocladist, to sit beside a cairn of stones or share a meal, that is still writing! Your narrator has written these words, this story, a hundred, a thousand times within her head. That is my joy, and graphomania my compulsion.
 
@@ -174,4 +174,4 @@ When The Woman overflows, she becomes ever more herself. She is—my attentive r
 
 My astute readers will surely have picked up by now that I am riding that edge here, in these words.
 
-But, ah! This story is not about me. I am not quite overflowing yet, and The Woman most certainly is not. She is reveling in the warmth of sunlight and the dance of bees and the tickling of dandelions against her ankles and the purringly soft touch of friendship.
+But, ah–! This story is not about me. I am not quite overflowing yet, and The Woman most certainly is not. She is reveling in the warmth of sunlight and the dance of bees and the tickling of dandelions against her ankles and the purringly soft touch of friendship.

idumea/content/003.tex

@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ The Woman did all that she could to hang onto joy whenever it slipped into her l
 
 But even like me with my little tasty baked treats, The Woman's joy is parceled out bit by bit to herself and her cocladists and, just like my little plates of carrot cake—I \emph{do} love a good carrot cake!—there is never an infinite amount, much as she might wish, nor, it always seems, quite enough.
 
-She hung onto joy and baked her goodies and went for her walks and awaited, with some trepidation, the regularly scheduled therapy, because I think she knew that, being confronted with recounting emotions of the past or discussing emotions to come, her grasp on joy would be tested. Once every two weeks, unless she was overflowing, unless she was in pain, unless she simply could not bring herself to go, The Woman had an appointment for therapy, and she knew there was good to be had in it, for it had proven its use time and again over the years, and yet it was a time for threshing, for harrowing. It was a time for throwing herself at the Work at one level of remove and watching the chaff fall away and the fruits of her labor lay exposed. It was a time for dragging the implements of tools dialectical and behaviors cognitive through the dirt of her to break up into clods her varied neuroses.
+She hung onto joy and baked her goodies and went for her walks and awaited, with some trepidation, her regularly scheduled therapy, because I think she knew that, being confronted with recounting emotions of the past or discussing emotions to come, her grasp on joy would be tested. Once every two weeks, unless she was overflowing, unless she was in pain, unless she simply could not bring herself to go, The Woman had an appointment for therapy, and she knew there was good to be had in it, for it had proven its use time and again over the years, and yet it was a time for threshing, for harrowing. It was a time for throwing herself at the Work at one level of remove and watching the chaff fall away and the fruits of her labor lay exposed. It was a time for dragging the implements of tools dialectical and behaviors cognitive through the dirt of her to break up into clods her varied neuroses.
 
 But as it goes, as it always goes, the morsels of joy meted gladly out soon began to run dry and the sense of happiness that she felt waned, and those truly \emph{good} days began to fade once more into merely okay.
 
@@ -18,13 +18,13 @@ In fact, I would say that there was perhaps even a sort of protectiveness. I thi
 
 And so it was that The Woman, today a human, today, as ever, dressed comfortably, made herself a peanut butter and banana sandwich with the crusts cut off and poured herself a glass of soy milk and walked out into the field outside her house. She had to balance her sandwich atop her drink in order to complete the ritual of passing through the front door, but she had done this countless times before.
 
-The table and chairs sat nearly a mile out from the tenth stanza's house, sprouting senselessly from the grass as easy and carefree as yet more dandelions. A simple square table with two chairs set before adjacent sides so that she need not look Her Therapist in the eye, so that they might each stare out into some similar distance, so that they may feel companionship, though The Woman never could explain how that worked.
+The table and chairs sat nearly a mile out from the tenth stanza's house, sprouting senselessly from the grass as easy and carefree as yet more dandelions. A simple square table with two chairs set before adjacent sides so that she need not look Her Therapist in the eye if she did not want to, so that they might each stare out into some similar distance, so that they may feel companionship, though The Woman never could explain how that worked.
 
-And so The Woman, today a human, walked the mile to the table and sat down her glass of soy milk and began to eat her sandwich. When, at last, there were only two bites left and the glass was half empty, she sent a delicate ping to Her Therapist, who appeared beside the table, paws folded and kind smile on her face. The visage of a skunk lasted no longer than a second before, with a rapid fork, a human stood before her—for Her Therapist endeavored always to mirror her species lest she influence The Woman's own, though she leaned far harder into gender-play, and one would be hard pressed to not also see her as a young man—and bowed, then pulled out the chair beside her and sat down.
+And so The Woman, today a human, walked the mile to the table and sat down with her glass of soy milk and began to eat her sandwich. When, at last, there were only two bites left and the glass was half empty, she sent a delicate ping to Her Therapist, who appeared beside the table, paws folded and kind smile on her face. The visage of a skunk lasted no longer than a second before, with a rapid fork, a human stood before her—for Her Therapist endeavored always to mirror her species lest she influence The Woman's own, though she leaned far harder into gender-play, and one would be hard pressed to not also see her as a young man—and bowed, then pulled out the chair beside her and sat down.
 
 ``I will be finished in a moment, Ever Dream,'' The Woman said just as she did every session. ``Just a few bites left.''
 
-``Of course, End Of Endings,'' Her Therapist echoed in the time-honored ritual. ``Please take your time.''
+``Of course, End Of Endings,'' Her Therapist echoed in the time-honored ritual. ``Please, take your time.''
 
 The Woman gave a hint of a bow and enjoyed the last two bites of her sandwich as well as she was able, following each with a sip of soy milk, all while Her Therapist made herself comfortable, sitting back in her chair and gazing out over the field of grass and dandelions, a half-smile on her face.
 
@@ -58,7 +58,7 @@ After therapy, after Her Therapist had left and the chairs had been set beneath
 
 There was a sense of falling-short within her, a sense of not meeting expectations. Perhaps it was a sense of shame that she had been so keen to hide this idea that she had happened upon, to keep the idea of the end of joy to herself. Perhaps it was because she had so easily let herself be talked out of sharing earnestly that which she would most liked to have discussed. Perhaps it was because—and here I am using words she herself would use—it was because she was a coward. Perhaps, when confronted with something that she believed to be worth talking about, to have such stopped before she could do so took the wind out of her sails, and she was too cowardly to do anything but let that happen. So many perhapses.
 
-It was with these thoughts and these feelings filling her mind to overfull that The Woman walked back to the house, back up the stairs to the porch, back through the door with a brush of the fingers, back up the staircase, back to her room where she stripped and climbed back into bed.
+It was with these thoughts and these feelings filling her mind to overfull that The Woman walked back to the house, back up the stairs to the porch, back through the door with a brush of fingers on jamb, back up the staircase, back to her room where she stripped and climbed back into bed.
 
 There she slept, and perhaps there she dreamed.
 

idumea/content/004.tex

@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ What \emph{was} her lot in life? What was \emph{a} lot in life? Was she limited
 
 She knew where they came from.
 
-Her lot in life had at one point been to teach, to revel in the joy of acting and directing and sets and props and lights and sound and audience and her lovely, loving students who ached for nothing more than to be seen, to receive some perhaps hug from this person who they trusted and yet who could not give them such for fear of pandemic and regulation in equal measure, to receive some perhaps affection from their cohort and yet which their beloved teacher stopped them for fear of pandemic and regulation in unequal measure.
+Her lot in life had at one point been to teach, to revel in the joy of acting and directing and sets and props and lights and sound and audience and her lovely, loving students who ached for nothing more than to be seen, to receive some perhaps hug from this person who they trusted and yet who could not give them such for fear of pandemic and regulation in equal measure, to receive some perhaps affection from their cohort and yet which their beloved teacher stopped them—was required to stop them—for fear of pandemic and regulation in unequal measure.
 
 She knew the helplessness of having her agency ripped from her. She knew the feeling of being seen by something larger than mere personhood, a thing which saw her and said, ``this here is a wretched and despicable thing,'' and then took her from the world. And then her lot in life was to campaign, for though she still taught on occasion, still directed, she found she could not act as she wished, and still she had to refrain from hugging for fear of the discomfort of touch.
 
@@ -58,9 +58,9 @@ The Woman furrowed her brow. ``Perhaps, yes. I was thinking about it during the
 
 ``Can you tell me about that?'' Ey smiled, adding, ``Sorry. I try to stay away from therapeutic language in our discussions, but habits are habits. I really do just want to hear.''
 
-``I trust you, No Hesitation.'' The Woman brushed the longer fur of her mane out her eyes as she pieced together her words. ``It felt like a thing to bear within me. I\ldots well, I had considered sharing it, as well, but then Ever Dream requested that I stop. I told her of our meeting and the joy and was going to mention this sharing of joy, but I mentioned our conversation and she requested that I stop. She said that she would like to hear about it from you herself rather than from me.''
+``I trust you, No Hesitation.'' The Woman brushed the longer fur of her mane out her eyes as she pieced together her words. ``It felt like a thing to bear within me. I\ldots well, I had considered sharing it, as well, but then Ever Dream requested that I stop. I told her of our meeting and the joy and was going to mention this sharing of joy, but I mentioned our conversation and she stopped me. She said that she would like to hear about it from you herself rather than from me.''
 
-Her Friend sighed. ``She did not need to. I understand why, but she did not need to. I believe that I am your friend before I am her cocladist, but I do not think that she would agree with that.''
+Her Friend sighed. ``She did not need to maintain confidentiality. I understand why, but she did not need to. I believe that I am your friend before I am her cocladist, but I do not think that she would agree with that.''
 
 The Woman sat back in her seat, mocha clutched in her paws. ``Alright. I believe you on that, too.''
 
@@ -80,11 +80,11 @@ The Woman and Her Friend set to work, then, discussing what she could do, what s
 
 \secdiv
 
-The Woman and Her Friend decided that her path forward would be one of intent and deliberate action. After all, that is how our System works, yes? We intend to be wearing a piece of clothing we like and we are. We intend to step from this sim to that, and we do. We intend to fork and, lo! There beside us stands another instance of ourself! They are a whole new us! They can live their own life, going their own separate way and making their own choices, or perhaps they can go out to do some task or another or visit some friend for coffee and then quit, merging themself back down into us.
+The Woman and Her Friend decided that her path forward would be one of intent and deliberate action. After all, that is how our System works, yes? We intend to be wearing a piece of clothing we like and we are. We intend to step from this sim to that, and we do. We intend to fork and, lo! There beside us stands another instance of ourself! They are a whole new us! They can live their own life, going their own separate way and making their own choices, or perhaps they can go out to do some task or another or visit some friend for coffee and then quit, merging themself—along with all of their memories—back down into us.
 
 They decided on a list of five things that she should try.
 
-Why five, you ask? Well, I honestly do not know! Perhaps because of the five fingers we have on each paw. Perhaps it is because we have two arms, two legs, and a head protruding from our trunk. Or perhaps it has to do with the stars. Starfish? Little wandering doodles to replace the tittles above our 'i's and jots above our 'j's? Each an iota, a mote, a symbol to our future selves, a note for later. Asterisms and asterisks.
+Why five, you ask? Well, I honestly do not know! Perhaps because of the five fingers we have on each paw. Perhaps it is because we have two arms, two legs, and a head protruding from our trunk. Or perhaps it has to do with the stars. Starfish? Little wandering doodles to replace the tittles above our `i's and jots above our `j's? Each an iota, a mote, a symbol to our future selves, a note for later. Asterisms and asterisks. Footnotes of self.
 
 Ah, but I digress. The Woman and her friend chose a list of five things that she would try—\emph{would,} yes, for \emph{should,} you see, is a value judgment—in order to seek joy in small ways or in small places. The Woman knew that it would be hard. She knew that she would have to bundle up all of her energy and all of her patience with herself and all of her drive and use that to let her last through these explorations of joy.
 
@@ -140,7 +140,7 @@ The Woman tamped down the burgeoning sense of overstimulation and bowed. ``Yes.
 
 ``Lovely lovely lovely. Please, please come in and lay down. I do so love grooming you and yours.''
 
-And so The Woman went inside and lay down and let The Aesthetician work through her mane and over her tail and through all the little nooks and crannies around her neck and limbs. All the while, they chatted quietly—for an aesthetician such as this reads their clients well and knew how to modulate their attitude that they not overwhelm someone such as The Woman. The brushing was calm and peaceful and felt lovely and delightful in all those ways that she appreciated when she was able to do it herself, and yet it came with a sense of companionship and camaraderie that left her feeling fulfilled and, yes, joyful. Joyful! The Woman and The Aesthetician talked and talked, and The Woman spoke more freely to her than she ever did to Her Therapist and, without being able to explain just how, she knew that the words she spoke would be kept in just as close a confidence.
+And so The Woman went inside and lay down and let The Aesthetician work through her mane and over her tail and through all the little nooks and crannies around her neck and limbs. All the while, they chatted quietly—for an aesthetician such as this reads their clients well and knew how to modulate their attitude that they not overwhelm someone such as The Woman. The brushing was calm and peaceful and felt lovely and delightful in all those ways that she appreciated when she was able to do it herself, and yet it came with a sense of companionship and camaraderie that left her feeling fulfilled and, yes, joyful. Joyful! The Woman and The Aesthetician talked and talked, and The Woman spoke more freely to her than ever she did to Her Therapist and, without being able to explain just how, she knew that the words she spoke would be kept in just as close a confidence.
 
 The Woman left refreshed, renewed, reinvigorated, and with this eye she set to looking into the escalation that she promised Her Friend.
 
@@ -148,7 +148,7 @@ We have seen such success already, have we not? We have seen the ways in which T
 
 Ah, but my words are wandering. This touch, even the grooming, is a sometimes food for The Woman, and yet she had held herself at a distance from such for who knows what reason. I do not think she knew, herself, my friends, for she is as we all are: she is a woman who craves touch and deserves touch and does not, on an intellectual level, wish that she were \emph{not} touched. It is emotional, perhaps, or psychic, or spiritual, or on some level other than the intellectual that the desire to touch and be touched, or the physical need for fulfillment, is difficult for her.
 
-And thus The Woman began her slow climb up the ladder of escalation. She met once more with Her Friend and asked, kindly, perhaps a bit nervously, for a hug and for the chance to hold hands and paws—for she was a human that day, and Her Friend a skunk as ever—and it took something of a force of will to let such touch linger, it was a pleasant sensation and a pleasant conversation that followed, an exploration—between friends, for Her Friend was always careful to specifically \emph{not} be The Woman's therapist—of meanings and boundaries.
+And thus The Woman began her slow climb up the ladder of escalation. She met once more with Her Friend and asked, kindly, perhaps a bit nervously, for a hug and for the chance to hold hands and paws—for she was a human that day, and Her Friend a skunk as ever—and it took something of a force of will to let such touch linger. It was a pleasant sensation and a pleasant conversation that followed, an exploration—between friends, for Her Friend was always careful to specifically \emph{not} be The Woman's therapist—of meanings and boundaries.
 
 And so it was that The Woman sought out those who she knew, those who might have some affection for her beyond simple conversational friendship, those who had been sensual of old, partners and almost-partners from centuries ago who remained still on the System. She thought back through the years and years and years, and Her Lover was the one who leapt most readily to mind.
 
@@ -160,11 +160,11 @@ The response was immediate. \emph{``End Of Endings! Oh my god! You have no idea
 
 There was a long moment silence on the other end of the connection, though the sense of it lingering remained. \emph{``I am sorry, love,''} Her Lover said at last. \emph{``I haven't forgotten you, though, or my fondness, so yeah, I'd love to reconnect.''}
 
-If my more recently uploaded friends feel some sense of curiosity about how it is that someone with whom one has let contact language for decades might still feel fondness after so long, or how one might not forget, you must remember that those who live sys-side remain functionally immortal. If one leans into such a fact, then decades spent away may as well be a blink of an eye, yes? If one leans into the everlasting memory with which we are blessed or cursed or which is simply bestowed upon us without further thought, then a past lover away from whom one has simply drifted amicably is just as easily recalled.
+If my more recently uploaded friends feel some sense of curiosity about how it is that someone with whom one has let contact languish for decades might still feel fondness after so long, or how one might not forget, you must remember that those who live sys-side remain functionally immortal. If one leans into such a fact, then decades spent away may as well be a blink of an eye, yes? If one leans into the everlasting memory with which we are blessed or cursed or which is simply bestowed upon us without further thought, then a past lover away from whom one has simply drifted amicably is just as easily recalled.
 
-We are very old, you see. Why, at this point, I am 323 years old! And The Woman is of the same clade, so the same is naturally true of her—if she lives still, that is. To us, we remember being mortal as only some distant thing from so long ago. We have our identity as those who may live life slowly. Things may still come at us quickly, yes, but we can deal with them in parallel, can we not? I could get a note from my dear up-tree stating that it is lonely or bored or simply hungry and wants someone to eat with, and so I may continue writing while joining em in this simple pleasure. I did that just earlier today, when she mentioned wanting to eat something good, some comforting food she learned from eir own friend, so that good memories may also be cherished. When I did join it for a simple meal of \emph{ciorbă de praz} and \emph{ardei umpluți}—for you see, its friend is Romanian and taught em so many of the dishes that she now loves—I sat and listened and remembered and talked and ate and perhaps also fretted over stepping away from work, but I allowed myself to take some slowness, too. Even I am allowed such things, yes? Even the terminally busy may let one self stay busy while the other comforts and is comforted by those they are close to.
+We are very old, you see. Why, at this point, I am 323 years old! And The Woman is of the same clade, so the same is naturally true of her—if she lives still, that is. To us, we remember being mortal as only some distant thing from so long ago. We have our identity as those who may live life slowly. Things may still come at us quickly, yes, but we can deal with them in parallel, can we not? I could get a note from my beloved up-tree stating that it is lonely or bored or simply hungry and wants someone to eat with, and so I may continue writing while joining em in this simple pleasure. I did that just earlier today, when she mentioned wanting to eat something good, some comforting food she learned from eir own friend, so that good memories may also be cherished. When I did join it for a simple meal of \emph{ciorbă de praz} and \emph{ardei umpluți}—for you see, its friend is Romanian and taught em so many of the dishes that she now loves—I sat and listened and remembered and talked and ate and perhaps also fretted over stepping away from work, but I allowed myself to take some slowness, too. Even I am allowed such things, yes? Even the terminally busy may let one self stay busy while the other comforts and is comforted by those they are close to.
 
-Ah, dear readers, I am sorry that I cannot keep my thoughts from wandering an letting my pen trail after them like an eager puppy—yes, just like The Woman's rituals—and that such interrupts the story I am trying to tell!
+Ah, dear readers, I am sorry that I cannot keep my thoughts from wandering and letting my pen trail after them like an eager puppy—yes, just like The Woman's rituals—and that such interrupts the story I am trying to tell!
 
 All of this to say that The Woman and Her Lover spent some years together back in the first century of the System, back after secession but before she had fallen into her gentle stasis, before the goal of processing trauma was subsumed by the trauma itself. They had met—and you will not believe this, friends!—they had met at the very same cafe where The Woman and Her Friend met only days before. They had stumbled across each other in the most romantic way possible: by ordering the same coffees at the counter. They both asked for the same mocha with extra whipped cream, gave each other a strange look, and then fell into laughter.
 
@@ -178,7 +178,7 @@ My gentle readers, I would love to tell you that they met up at that selfsame ca
 
 A train! There are many things on Lagrange, this shared dream in which we live, and many things which have been perfected all the way down to their imperfections. When you collect so many minds all in one place and tell them to live their best and to live it forever, why, they will perfect precisely the things they love most and, my friends, I am sure I do not need to tell you that some people \emph{love} trains.
 
-As was their wont in decades passed, The Woman met Her Lover onboard rather than on the platform. It was their habit for Her Lover to step aboard the train one stop after The Woman did, and for them to both hunt for a seat—no matter how empty the train was; for even if it was totally empty, the \emph{perfect} seat is of the utmost importance—and to meet in the aisle. You see, when your relationship has its beginning in a chance meeting, sometimes it feels nice to seek out those chance meetings again, yes? What better way to do so than on so linear a structure as a train? It certainly reduces the possibilities of near misses!
+As was their wont in decades past, The Woman met Her Lover onboard rather than on the platform. It was their habit for Her Lover to step aboard the train one stop after The Woman did, and for them to both hunt for a seat—no matter how empty the train was; for even if it was totally empty, the \emph{perfect} seat is of the utmost importance—and to meet in the aisle. You see, when your relationship has its beginning in a chance meeting, sometimes it feels nice to seek out those chance meetings again, yes? What better way to do so than on so linear a structure as a train? It certainly reduces the possibilities of near misses!
 
 Somewhere near the front of the train, they met, and here they felt that welcome surprise. The ``chance meeting'' may have been deliberately constructed, and yet it was not without a sense of newness. The Woman was a familiar panther that day and Her Lover a human as always, but The Woman, who had been so focused on her stasis until now, realized at once that she \emph{had} changed over the years. Slowly, to be sure, and perhaps not in the ways that she wished, but she had changed. Today, she wore a silver-gray wrap of a shirt, all shot through with purple threads, and a gray-silver wrap of Thai fisherman's pants, all shot through with threads of blue. Her fur may have been the same black, short and glossy, and she may have lingered in suffering as the tenth stanza had in her own way, but she was hardly the type to fully languish, nor wear the same thing for years or decades at a time!
 
@@ -224,19 +224,19 @@ With that, she leaned over to give The Woman another kiss to the cheek, and then
 
 They laughed together at their touches and their brazenness and their shared joy. They shared their nuzzles and their giggles and they, as the poet says,\label{paz1} shared their oranges and gave their kisses like waves exchanging foam.
 
-My lovely readers, there is more that happened—and I am going to tell you! I really will, because it is important to the story, of course, and because it is important to our life sys-side and to us as a clade and it was important to The Woman and Her Lover—but, dear ones, if you would like to skip ahead, to cover your eyes and curate your experience or to simply let them have their moment together, know that our life sys-side and our clade are complicated and that The Woman and Her Lover were complicated, too, and so was the joy they found. Know that they also, as the poet says,\label{paz2} shared their limes and gave their kisses like clouds exchanging foam.
+My lovely readers, there is more that happened—and I am going to tell you! I really will, because it is important to the story, of course, and because it is important to our lives sys-side and to us as a clade and it was important to The Woman and Her Lover—but, dear ones, if you would like to skip ahead, to cover your eyes and curate your experience or to simply let them have their moment together, know that our lives sys-side and our clade are complicated and that The Woman and Her Lover were complicated, too, and so was the joy they found. Know that they also, as the poet says,\label{paz2} shared their limes and gave their kisses like clouds exchanging foam.
 
-They leaned on each other as they stepped lightly from the train to the station, and, although the station was a loveliness in its own right, their conversation had spurred within them both a desire to explore and gladly, rather than their feet hitting the cement of the platform, they landed instead on the cool, hardwood floor of Her Lover's home where The Woman brushed her fingertips featherlight against the still-familiar jamb.
+They leaned on each other as they stepped lightly from the train to the platform, and, although the station was a loveliness in its own right, their conversation had spurred within them both a desire to explore and gladly, rather than their feet hitting the cement of the platform, they landed instead on the cool, hardwood floor of Her Lover's home where The Woman brushed her fingertips featherlight against the still-familiar jamb.
 
 There was no rush to their movements, for both The Woman and Her Lover had always been methodical in their sensuality. Perhaps it fit the mold of one of The Woman's rituals—she must touch here, first, and then she would kiss there, and only then would she brush her fingers there, across the cheek—and perhaps not—a logical progression remains a logical progression without the hint of ritual.
 
-There was no rush to their movements, and so they sat first on the couch, sharing their kisses, refamiliarizing themselves with each other. The Woman felt within a subtle twisting, a stirring, a clockwise motion that dragged with it two colors of emotions. There was the love rekindled, there, yes, and there was along with it a growing anxiety: there was something less than worry and more than thought. In the middle, there was a spot between joy and fear, a place of too much meaning that she could not pin down.\label{timo} Arousal, perhaps? For there was that, there, too. That was perhaps of that clockwise turning: the slow swell of warmth low in her belly and the gentle pressure within her chest and bristle of whiskers. Excitement, maybe? Anticipation?
+There was no rush to their movements, and so they sat first on the couch, sharing their kisses, refamiliarizing themselves with each other. The Woman felt within a subtle twisting, a stirring, a clockwise motion\label{kassad} that dragged with it two colors of emotions. There was the love rekindled, there, yes, and there was along with it a growing anxiety: there was something less than worry and more than thought. In the middle, there was a spot between joy and fear, a place of too much meaning that she could not pin down.\label{timo} Arousal, perhaps? For there was that, there, too. That was perhaps of that clockwise turning: the slow swell of warmth low in her belly and the gentle pressure within her chest and bristle of whiskers. Excitement, maybe? Anticipation?
 
-Here was another thing for The Woman to set before herself where she might observe it, describe its shape by the way the orange and blue of love and anxiety swirled around it.
+Here was another thing for The Woman to set before herself where she might observe it, describe its shape by the way the orange and blue of love and anxiety\label{blue-orange} swirled around it.
 
 But, ah! Here, too, was Her Lover. Here was a soul she treasured. Here was a body she cherished. Here was this spot—just beneath the chin—which, when kissed, elicited a shiver, and this spot—at the hollow of the throat—which, when brushed with a fingerpad, elicited something both gasp and giggle. Here was arousal and excitement and anticipation in equal measure. Here was a thing for her to focus on that was not the cool blue of anxiety that warred with love remembered in unequal measure.
 
-There was no rush to their movements, though, and arousal and excitement and anticipation in equal measure are a joy in their own, and so with some unspoken negotiation, The Woman leaned back and Her Lover leaned forward rather than the other way around. There was some careful tail maneuvering to accomplish this, but, my friends, we are used to it. There is \emph{always} a careful maneuvering of our tails. Skunk tails, you see, are quite sizeable, and feline tails are less flexible at the base. It is a part of our lives, you see? There is still joy in having a tail, though, and with her tail out of the way, The Woman was once more able to relax, this time laid flat on her back, and Her Lover was once more able to provide that meteor shower of kisses down over the side of her neck, then over across her décolletage, and it was here where, as promised, here is where the complications arose, for it was at that moment, at the moment where Her Lover's kisses landed upon that lovely spot at the hollow of her throat that there was a bright flash amidst the blue of The Woman's anxiety and she was no longer The Woman who was a panther, but instead The Woman who was human.
+There was no rush to their movements, though, and arousal and excitement and anticipation in equal measure are a joy in their own, and so with some unspoken negotiation, The Woman leaned back and Her Lover leaned forward rather than the other way around. There was some careful tail maneuvering to accomplish this, but, my friends, we are used to it. There is \emph{always} a careful maneuvering of our tails. Skunk tails, you must understand, are quite sizeable, and feline tails are less flexible at the base. It is a part of our lives, you see? There is still joy in having a tail, though, and with her tail out of the way, The Woman was once more able to relax, this time laid flat on her back, and Her Lover was once more able to provide that meteor shower of kisses down over the side of her neck, then over across her décolletage, and it was here where, as promised, the complications arose, for it was at that moment, at the moment where Her Lover's kisses landed upon that lovely spot at the hollow of her throat that there was a bright flash amidst the blue of The Woman's anxiety and she was no longer The Woman who was a panther, but instead The Woman who was human.
 
 Both The Woman and Her Lover let out a startled exclamation and both froze where they were. The Woman froze because suddenly her clothes fit different and her field of view no longer included the bridge of a wide muzzle and her ears were positioned differently and there was no longer any fur mediating touch. Her Lover froze because\ldots well, I do not rightly know, friends. We can guess, yes? We can guess that there was the shock of a new form, yes, but they knew each other well, did they not? We can guess that there was a shift on the couch beneath her with a different shape, different size, different weight of lover, but they knew each other well, did they not? They knew each other well, and so we may guess that Her Lover knew that such a shift was not always a pleasantness for The Woman, not always a joy.
 
@@ -264,6 +264,6 @@ The Woman shifted forms several times more. There were, they found, certain mile
 
 Throughout it all, all those kisses—whether or not The Woman was able to return them, for giving kisses with a muzzle is not a thing she was able to do—and those squeezes and strokes and the gentle way Her Lover cupped her palm over The Woman's mons, throughout all those shifts, The Woman kept before her that ineffable point. Throughout all of the warmth of love and those stinging-cold flashes of anxiety and they way they swirled clockwise, she peered closer that she might scry some meaning out of this kernel of what was most certainly not joy. Even as the warm wave of climax pushed through her, rushing out from that spot low in her belly, even as she clutched at Her Lover's shoulders, fingertips and clawtips both tugging at skin, even as her cries smoothed out into whine-tinged breaths, she tried to name the unnamable.
 
-They lay together for hours after, talking and touching. They moved to the bed and The Woman who was a skunk or a human or a panther brought such pleasure as she had been given to Her Lover, and at last they slept, and the undefinable remained undefined. There was joy in that touch, in that remembered love, and she knew that Her Lover would be by her side for some time to come if she let her—and she would let her—and that, too was a joy. And still, there between joy and fear\ldots{}
+They lay together for hours after, talking and touching. They moved to the bed and The Woman who was a skunk or a human or a panther brought such pleasure as she had been given to Her Lover, and at last they slept, and the undefinable remained undefined. There was joy in that touch, in that remembered love, and she knew that Her Lover would be by her side for some time to come if she let her—and she would let her—and that, too, was a joy.\label{echo} And still, there between joy and fear\ldots{}
 
 There was joy, yes, but it was not a complete joy. Her hedonism with touch and sensuality and sexuality was a lovely hedonism and she cherished it, but it was not the hedonism she needed for this task.

idumea/content/005.tex

@@ -1,19 +1,16 @@
-\hypertarget{end-of-endings-2403-rye-2409}{%
-\subsection{\texorpdfstring{End Of Endings --- 2403×Rye --- 2409}{End Of Endings --- 2403 × Rye --- 2409}}\label{end-of-endings-2403-rye-2409}}
-
 Some of my readers may be wondering why it is that I know so much about The Woman.
 
-``How does she know all of this?'' some might be wondering. ``Does she really know all these things that The Woman did? Does she know who the kindly shop owner is? The one who pet on The Woman as she sobbed from too spicy a chili?'' Others might be wondering --- and rightly so! --- ``How much of this is actually real? Surely she does not know The Woman's innermost thoughts! All this talk of ideas in shapes being set before her is quite silly.''
+``How does she know all of this?'' some might be wondering. ``Does she really know all these things that The Woman did? Does she know who the kindly shop owner is? The one who pet on The Woman as she sobbed from too spicy a chili?'' Others might be wondering—and rightly so!—``How much of this is actually real? Surely she does not know The Woman's innermost thoughts! All this talk of ideas in shapes being set before her is quite silly.''
 
-My answer is that tired phrase: ``It is complicated.'' Of course I do not know her innermost thoughts. I think it is a me thing to take abstract ideas and pretend they look like pretty baubles or hot coals or little statuettes to be placed upon a dresser. I cannot read minds, and I do not have any memories from The Woman. I do not even know quite what she is anymore! I would not know if she quit, since I am not down-tree from her --- her down-tree instance is dead now, these last six decades, remember --- and I do not believe she merged cross-tree with anyone except perhaps Ashes Denote That Fire Was, who is building in themself a gestalt of the clade as best they can. No, I do not know anything so intimate.
+My answer is that tired phrase: ``It is complicated.'' Of course I do not know her innermost thoughts. I think it is a me thing to take abstract ideas and pretend they look like pretty baubles or hot coals or little statuettes to be placed upon a dresser. I cannot read minds, and I do not have any memories from The Woman. I do not even know quite what she is anymore! I would not know if she quit, since I am not down-tree from her—her down-tree instance is dead now, these last six decades, remember—and I do not believe she merged cross-tree with anyone except perhaps Ashes Denote That Fire Was, who is building in themself a gestalt of the clade as best they can.\label{ashes} No, I do not know anything so intimate.
 
 What I do have, though, is a story. I have the story I learned from The Woman's Friend and Therapist and Cocladist and Lover, the one I learned from The Blue Fairy. I have all of that story that I learned, and I have that story that I lived.
 
 \secdiv
 
-One day --- I remember it being quite a warm one, though every sim has different weather, and we as a clade are not all that keen on cold --- one day, The Woman came to me.
+One day—I remember it being quite a warm one, though every sim has different weather, and we as a clade are not all that keen on cold—one day, The Woman came to me.
 
-``Dear The Wheat And Rye Under The Stars,'' she said as she stood before my door, a skunk looking much the same as I do --- though it bears repeating that she was \emph{quite} stylish, and I promise you, friends, I am \emph{not;} she wore a simple outfit of shifting colors that caught the eye without dazzling, one that made her look supremely comfortable as herself, and me? I wore a t-shirt and pajama pants! ``I was pointed your way by Praiseworthy. Do you have a moment to speak?''
+``Dear The Wheat And Rye Under The Stars,'' she said as she stood before my door, a skunk looking much the same as I do—though it bears repeating that she was \emph{quite} stylish, and I promise you, friends, I am \emph{not;} she wore a simple outfit of shifting colors that caught the eye without dazzling, one that made her look supremely comfortable as herself, and me? I wore a t-shirt and pajama pants! ``I was pointed your way by Praiseworthy. Do you have a moment to speak?''
 
 Readers, I do not think I need to tell you that I was caught off-guard by this! I had never met The Woman before, though I had certainly seen her once or twice. There were functions, yes? And perhaps she came to one of my readings or two, and certainly she was there, that day on the field as we watched Michelle who was also Sasha give herself up to the world and become one with the heart that perhaps beats at some imagined center of the System. The most recent time I had seen her, though, was in some unreadable and thus unwritable mood as some few dozen of us gathered on the first of what some are now calling \emph{HaShichzur,} the day that Lagrange was restored after the Century Attack.
 
@@ -27,7 +24,7 @@ And now here she was, standing in the little courtyard created by the set of tow
 
 My place is clean and minimal. It is not clean because I am necessarily a clean person, nor is it minimal because I have any particular attachments to minimalism or its trappings. Friends, you have surely gathered by now that I am quite a bit more focused on writing than I am on most anything else. My home contains a simple kitchen and a simple dining table. There is a den in which there is a couch and a coffee table. There are two bedrooms, one of which contains a bed and the other of which is empty. The only room that is of any interest is perhaps my office, but even that is probably too minimal for most people's tastes! I have a desk. I have paper and pens and a keyboard on which I can type when that is the mood.
 
-That is not to say that it is a boring place --- at least, I do not think so! I have some paintings on the wall, some landscapes interrupted by hyper-black squares painted by The Child. There are several little decorations scattered around, as well; little objects that The Oneirotect has made in its explorations in oneirotecture and oneiro-impressionism. The most meaningful of these sits on my writing desk, and takes the form of a wireframe polyhedral fox about the size of my paw. While it is silver in color, it does not cast any shadows on itself and has constant luminosity, and so it looks like a two-dimensional shape that changes as your perspective does.
+That is not to say that it is a boring place—at least, I do not think so! I have some paintings on the wall, some landscapes interrupted by hyper-black squares painted by The Child. There are several little decorations scattered around, as well: little objects that The Oneirotect has made in its explorations in oneirotecture and oneiro-impressionism. The most meaningful of these sits on my writing desk, and takes the form of a wireframe polyhedral fox about the size of my paw. While it is silver in color, it does not cast any shadows on itself and has constant luminosity, and so it looks like a two-dimensional shape that changes as your perspective does.
 
 Ah, I am digressing again. My thoughts and words wander.
 
@@ -49,7 +46,7 @@ While I fetched us both such a glass, I said, ``What is it that brings you here?
 
 ``A writer, a poet, and a musician. I have been having some thoughts on joy that I would like to explore with each of you.''
 
-She told me her story, much as I have written it to you, readers. She spoke of the ways of seeking out joy, of diving into the pleasures of food --- and I can tell you, friends, she is absolutely correct about tam mak hoong; it is \emph{incredibly} delicious --- and the pleasures of touch and sensuality and sexuality. She told me of how much joy she had found in such things and in the rekindled relationship with Her Lover, and she also told me of how these joys were lovely, but not the joys that she was seeking, and that she had three more items on her list of five. She had entertainment, creativity, and shaping herself yet to go.
+She told me her story, much as I have written it to you, readers. She spoke of the ways of seeking out joy, of diving into the pleasures of food—and I can tell you, friends, she is absolutely correct about tam mak hoong; it is \emph{incredibly} delicious—and the pleasures of touch and sensuality and sexuality. She told me of how much joy she had found in such things and in the rekindled relationship with Her Lover, and she also told me of how these joys were lovely, but not the joys that she was seeking, and that she had three more items on her list of five. She had entertainment, creativity, and shaping herself yet to go.
 
 ``So, your goal with visiting is to read?''
 
@@ -65,11 +62,11 @@ I do not know if you have ever been complimented in just the right way by just t
 
 The Woman, this skunk who sat before me with a glass of water held in her paws and her very chic outfit, the one who had smiled to me with such earnestness as to be a blessing, this woman who was too much herself, had just perceived me with such force as to leave me feeling bowled over. Even today, even these many years later, I remember that compliment and find breath catching in my throat, and we have already spoken on that, have we not?
 
-We sat in silence, then, while I processed this. My friends, you may perhaps have picked up the sense that The Woman is in some fundamental way broken and perhaps unable to interact well with others. After all, she sits for so long in her room and in her home and on her field, and she sees Her Friend only with some small frequency, and had only just recently gotten in touch with Her Lover, yes? And that is in many ways true, that she is broken. But it is not \emph{wholly} true. She was too much herself, yes, and she would have said even then that she had lived for too long and that she was in some fundamental way broken, but she was also so much more! I have shown you all that she was through her own perception, but from the outside\ldots ah, she was hard not to love, my friends.
+We sat in silence, then, while I processed this. My friends, you may perhaps have picked up the sense that The Woman is in some fundamental way broken and perhaps unable to interact well with others. After all, she sits for so long in her room and in her home and on her field, and she sees Her Friend only with some small frequency, and had only just recently gotten in touch with Her Lover, yes? And that is in many ways true, that she is broken. But it is not \emph{wholly} true. She was too much herself, yes, and she would have said even then that she had lived for too long and that she would probably say that she was in some fundamental way broken, but she was also so much more! I have shown you all that she was through her own perception, but from the outside\ldots ah, she was hard not to love, my friends.
 
 ``Thank you, my dear,'' I said at last, bowing.
 
-She smiled --- another blessing! --- and nodded to me.
+She smiled—another blessing!—and nodded to me.
 
 ``Tell me about your reading, then.''
 
@@ -79,23 +76,43 @@ She smiled --- another blessing! --- and nodded to me.
 
 ``We sat in the solarium and spoke about what reading \emph{is.} She spoke of taking a story or a poem and wrapping oneself up in it. She gave me an example. She recited a poem:
 
-\{\{\% verse \%\}\} ``Too many suits move in too many lines. They circle banquet tables, hawk-eyed, hunting crudites, canapés, bruschetta. Fingers ferry food --- fish, perhaps --- finding slack-jawed mouths already open, squawking at wayward children or bemoaning The Market, whatever that may be.
+\begin{verse}
+``Too many suits move in too many lines.\\
+They circle banquet tables, hawk-eyed,\\
+hunting crudites, canapés, bruschetta.\\
+Fingers ferry food—fish, perhaps—finding\\
+slack-jawed mouths already open,\\
+squawking at wayward children\\
+or bemoaning The Market,\\
+whatever that may be.
 
-``At some point, who cares how long ago, death surfaced, claimed one, submerged again. Who knows how well they knew him, their backs turned, studiously deciding that he is no longer of them?
+``At some point, who cares how long ago,\\
+death surfaced, claimed one, submerged again.\\
+Who knows how well they knew him,\\
+their backs turned, studiously\\
+deciding that he is no longer of them?
 
 ``One could never guess.
 
-``We can say his suit was very fine, perhaps, that the room is tastefully furnished, the casket silver, the bar, open, quite good, and none of them are drunk yet, or at least none look it.
+``We can say his suit was very fine, perhaps,\\
+that the room is tastefully furnished,\\
+the casket silver, the bar, open,\\
+quite good, and none of them are drunk yet,\\
+or at least none look it.
 
-````Good man, good man,'' they mutter, doing all they can to convince each other through well-rehearsed performances, that this must be the case.
+````Good man, good man,'' they mutter,\\
+doing all they can to convince each other\\
+through well-rehearsed performances,\\
+that this must be the case.
 
-``The silently bereaved already sit graveside.'' \{\{\% /verse \%\}\}
+``The silently bereaved already sit graveside.''
+\end{verse}
 
 I turned those words over and over in my head for a minute, since The Woman had seemed quite comfortable sitting in silence with me. She used that time to drink her water while I played back the words again and again, looking down at my paws, and then returned my gaze to hers. ``There is a difference between the mere performance of grief and grieving itself, is there not?''
 
-``It is as you say. There is performed grief and performative grief --- performative in the philosophical sense. We of the tenth stanza were quite sad when Lagrange came back with us intact but not with Should We Forget. We received condolences from many, some flowers and many kind words. Ever Dream came over and spoke with me about grief as we sat out on the field, where she said,''It is quite sad, is it not? To lose someone you have known for so long is quite sad.'' I agreed, and then drew a line around the topic.'' She performed such a motion now, describing an arc before her with one of her well kept claws, before dismissing it with a wave. ``This was grief performed.''
+``It is as you say. There is performed grief and performative grief—performative in the philosophical sense. We of the tenth stanza were quite sad when Lagrange came back with us intact but not with Should We Forget. We received condolences from many, some flowers and many kind words. Ever Dream came over and spoke with me about grief as we sat out on the field, where she said, ``It is quite sad, is it not? To lose someone you have known for so long is quite sad.'' I agreed, and then drew a line around the topic.'' She performed such a motion now, describing an arc before her with one of her well kept claws, before dismissing it with a wave. ``This was grief performed.''
 
-I nodded, and in my heart, I think I knew what was coming next, for I found my muscles bunching up as in in preparation for something --- flight, perhaps? I do not know, my friends.
+I nodded, and in my heart, I think I knew what was coming next, for I found my muscles bunching up as in in preparation for something—flight, perhaps? I do not know, my friends.
 
 ``And Warmth In Fire came over, too, so that it could sit at our table and weep rather than eat. Ey wept, and then asked to retreat, and we guided her up to Should We Forget's room so that they could lay in her bed for a while in silence. When it came back downstairs, ey thanked us kindly and left, and when we went back upstairs to look, there was a flower wrought out of some subtly glowing metal left on Should We Forget's pillow. It lays there still.''
 
@@ -109,7 +126,7 @@ So it is perhaps no surprise that I cried then, and that, for the third time, Th
 
 When I was once more able to speak, after I had taken a moment to clean up, I asked, ``You went into this experience with Slow Hours to explore joy, yes? What did you find, in the end?''
 
-``I did not read only this one poem. I read several more with her that day, and took home several books to read in such a way. Slow Hours talked me through the joy of stories --- even the small ones --- and left me with some assignments.
+``I did not read only this one poem. I read several more with her that day, and took home several books to read in such a way. Slow Hours talked me through the joy of stories—even the small ones—and left me with some assignments.
 
 ``I did not like all of the books, but Slow Hours instructed me to read them anyway, unless they started to make me truly bored. None did, however, so I finished every book I took with me.
 
@@ -141,7 +158,7 @@ When, now for the second time, I was able to sit up straight again, able breath
 
 The Woman's simple question left me all the room in the world to admit that I did not know. I think that until she asked it, I was not quite sure why, myself. I \emph{had} needed to hear those things but, yes: why? I do not think I would have been able to tell her as part of my statement, but that syllable forced my thoughts into order in a way that they are not as I write this, six years later.
 
-``Because I have not internalized the immediacy of the attack,'' I said. ``I did not know Should We Forget. I never met No Longer Myself. I met and spoke with Beckoning and Muse, yes, but only once. You telling me these things --- me hearing them --- was enough to make me realize that I have not truly grieved them, not properly. Your story of Warmth grieving helped me understand em better, and your story of Beholden's music and how she told you not to listen to it for her assignments made me realize that I, too, am only just starting to process the loss.''
+``Because I have not internalized the immediacy of the attack,'' I said. ``I did not know Should We Forget. I never met No Longer Myself. I met and spoke with Beckoning and Muse, yes, but only once. You telling me these things—me hearing them—was enough to make me realize that I have not truly grieved them, not properly. Your story of Warmth grieving helped me understand em better, and your story of Beholden's music and how she told you not to listen to it for her assignments made me realize that I, too, am only just starting to process the loss.''
 
 ``I understand. I was forced to confront the immediacy of Should We Forget no longer being with us from the very first day, and I am used to thinking of my stanza in terms of loss. We lost Death Itself and I Do Not Know, yes? We knew loss in a way more immediate within the clade except perhaps by those of the second stanza, who lost their first line, too, yes?''
 
@@ -179,7 +196,7 @@ I nodded. ``A story is a good place to start, yes. You really have made so littl
 
 Ah! This was it! My friends, this was the point when I realized just what it was that made each of The Woman's smiles feel like blessings and what made it feel like she bore some power within her that I could not quite understand. It was her \emph{stillness.} My astute readers will remember that she had a thought, some few thousand words ago: perhaps this unbecoming that her mind circled around was simply the utmost in stillness.
 
-Now, your narrator did not know this at the time --- I do not even know now that this was the thought she had that day, but I am a storyteller, and so that is part of her story --- but at the time, it was a revelation. Stillness and stillness and stillness. What a dream to have! Would that I could find such, yes? Even now, even as I write this, I feel that the lucidity in my words here is due only to my recounting of a conversation I actually had, words anchored to moments in time that I pull out one right after the other and lay in a pretty row.
+Now, your narrator did not know this at the time—I do not even know now that this was the thought she had that day, but I am a storyteller, and so that is part of her story—but at the time, it was a revelation. Stillness and stillness and stillness. What a dream to have! Would that I could find such, yes? Even now, even as I write this, I feel that the lucidity in my words here is due only to my recounting of a conversation I actually had, words anchored to moments in time that I pull out one right after the other and lay in a pretty row.
 
 At the time, however, I said, ``Have you found stillness in your endeavors so far? Was there stillness in active reading and active listening?''
 
@@ -211,23 +228,23 @@ I laughed, nodding.
 
 ``I will say that she is no less flighty or energetic when she chooses to live at older ages. When she is, say, twenty five, there is still no stopping her.''
 
-``So I am told. However, she is also a very good girl, is she not? Beholden saw the state that I was in --- for when Motes started zipping around the house, I started shifting between forms --- and suggested that she go and paint. She said quite simply''Okay!'' and ran off to the next room where she sat on a stool and began painting.''
+``So I am told. However, she is also a very good girl, is she not? Beholden saw the state that I was in—for when Motes started zipping around the house, I started shifting between forms—and suggested that she go and paint. She said quite simply''Okay!'' and ran off to the next room where she sat on a stool and began painting.''
 
 I looked up to the wall beside the couch, upon which a painting sat. The Woman smiled and nodded.
 
 The painting was of my up-tree's house. The Instance Artist was one who decided that it had had quite enough of life in comfort, life here on Lagrange, life here honing, or perhaps forging new frontiers but in a familiar place, and up and left for the stars, back when humanity buckled down and decided to send out the two launch vehicles. Our very own twins, yes? Castor and Pollux? Those two half-sized Systems that even still race out of the Solar System at some unimaginable speed, yes? The Instance Artist left us all behind with no fork to spare, and broke all of our hearts.
 
-When it had lived here on Lagrange, though, it had contracted my other up-tree, The Sim Designer, Serene; Sustained And Sustaining, to build for it an infinite short-grass prairie. It was a land of long, rolling hills and yet longer flat basins that always drank most thirstily from the seasonal storms that did their best to thrash the Earth below. There, amid the countless acres, sat its house, low and flat, an echo of the plains around it all done up in concrete that matched so well the gray-tan stalks of the grass in fall, the gray-green stalks in spring, and glass.
+When it had lived here on Lagrange, though, it had contracted my other up-tree, The Sim Designer, Serene; Sustained And Sustaining, to build for it an infinite short-grass prairie. It was a land of long, rolling hills and yet longer flat basins that always drank most thirstily from the seasonal storms that did their best to thrash the Earth below.\label{dwale} There, amid the countless acres, sat its house, low and flat, an echo of the plains around it all done up in concrete that matched so well the gray-tan stalks of the grass in fall, the gray-green stalks in spring, and glass.
 
 And so there on my wall sat a painting that I had asked The Child to make, small by her standards at only the size of both of my paws held flat, wherein she had painted the house, the endless prairie, and the sky that somehow managed to be something beyond endless. There was the gray of the concrete that matched so well the gray-tan stalks of grass in fall, the gray-green stalks in spring, and glass. There was the plain, the sky.
 
 And there, right in the center, hovering a scant claw-width above the house, a perfectly black perfect square.
 
-Readers, you must understand that, when I say perfectly black, I do mean it! There is this color --- or non-color --- \emph{Eigengrau} that is perhaps the darkest you are used to seeing. If you are in a perfectly dark room, or you are out beneath the stars at night and you close your eyes, or you are hiding under two layers of blankets from the monsters that haunt us still, even in this afterlife that we have built up into our nigh-perfection, what you see is not pure black, but \emph{Eigengrau.} It is the darkest color, I am told, that our eyes can see, phys-side! This is because, even when there is no light, the nerves of our eyes still fire occasionally. Perhaps it is because this is something that is required for nerve cells to feel healthy, and when those cells are in our muscles and it is just one or two at a time, it does not yank our hand away from our pen and paper like they were burning hot, but when they are in our eyes, every little firing is still perceived as a photon hitting this rod or that cone. Perhaps it is because there is some fundamental state of being for us that is \emph{not} stillness, but that is movement at some molecular level. Perhaps it is simply because they are lonely! I do not know, I do not know. I do not know.
+Readers, you must understand that, when I say perfectly black, I do mean it! There is this color—or non-color—\emph{Eigengrau} that is perhaps the darkest you are used to seeing. If you are in a perfectly dark room, or you are out beneath the stars at night and you close your eyes, or you are hiding under two layers of blankets from the monsters that haunt us still, even in this afterlife that we have built up into our nigh-perfection, what you see is not pure black, but \emph{Eigengrau.} It is the darkest color, I am told, that our eyes can see, phys-side! This is because, even when there is no light, the nerves of our eyes still fire occasionally. Perhaps it is because this is something that is required for nerve cells to feel healthy, and when those cells are in our muscles and it is just one or two at a time, it does not yank our hand away from our pen and paper like they were burning hot, but when they are in our eyes, every little firing is still perceived as a photon hitting this rod or that cone. Perhaps it is because there is some fundamental state of being for us that is \emph{not} stillness, but that is movement at some molecular level. Perhaps it is simply because they are lonely! I do not know, I do not know. I do not know.
 
-This square is not \emph{Eigengrau.} It is beyond that. It is beyond even black! It is an impossible black. It is deeper than \emph{Eigengrau,} yes, but it is also a very thirsty black. If the ground of The Instance Artist's prairie drinks thirstily of the sky, so too does this black drink thirstily of all the light in the world. It draws light from the room, and when you look at the painting, the world seems dimmer. It is a hole in the world.
+This square is not \emph{Eigengrau.} It is beyond that. It is beyond even black! It is an impossible black. It is deeper than \emph{Eigengrau,} yes, but it is also a very thirsty black. If the ground of The Instance Artist's prairie drinks thirstily of the sky, so too does this black drink thirstily of all the light in the world. It draws light from the room, and when you look at the painting, the world seems dimmer. It is a hole in the world.\label{motes}
 
-I am used to it, my friends, for it sits happily enough upon my wall, but I am told that it is unnerving to see.
+I am used to it, my friends, for it sits happily enough upon my wall, but I am told by some that it is unnerving to see.
 
 ``Her paintings have always struck me as bearing a sort of serenity that I have not actually seen in the world,'' I said after we had appreciated house and plain and sky and hole in the world. ``It is more than just some moment of movement captured and frozen in time. It is like she records things that had never been anything but still to begin with.''
 
@@ -245,9 +262,9 @@ She laughed. ``Neither had I. We hiked there once and it seems to have left litt
 
 The woman laughed.
 
-``So it is much like she paints the rest of the scene, yes? Except that it is not, because she is not adding to the picture, she is taking away from it. I have tried to look at this painting from every angle, yes? I have looked up close and far away. I have touched it and smelled it and --- yes, I will admit --- tasted it, and it is in all ways just paint on canvas. But it is not on \emph{top} of \emph{anything,} it is \emph{through everything,} I would say. I do not know how else to explain it. With all the calmness in the universe, she excised a part of the world from existence.'' I looked up to the painting again. ``I feel that, were I able to visit Dear's prairie again, that very chunk of it would be missing. I fear it would be some sort of black hole hungrily gobbling up all of Lagrange from the inside. In my dreams, that is what the Century Attack looks like. In my dreams, we are all pulled through a null rectangle like that, and when the world is pulled back out, those like Should We Forget and No Longer Myself and Beckoning and Muse are left within.''
+``So it is much like she paints the rest of the scene, yes? Except that it is not, because she is not adding to the picture, she is taking away from it. I have tried to look at this painting from every angle, yes? I have looked up close and far away. I have touched it and smelled it and—yes, I will admit—tasted it, and it is in all ways just paint on canvas. But it is not on \emph{top} of \emph{anything,} it is \emph{through everything,} I would say. I do not know how else to explain it. With all the calmness in the universe, she excised a part of the world from existence.'' I looked up to the painting again. ``I feel that, were I able to visit Dear's prairie again, that very chunk of it would be missing. I fear it would be some sort of black hole hungrily gobbling up all of Lagrange from the inside. In my dreams, that is what the Century Attack looks like. In my dreams, we are all pulled through a null rectangle like that, and when the world is pulled back out, those like Should We Forget and No Longer Myself and Beckoning and Muse are left within.''
 
-We sat in silence --- silences can be so comfortable sometimes! --- while I looked up at the painting and The Woman looked out the sliding glass door that led out to my little patio. It must have been two or three minutes of just long, comfortable silence, of just a woman who was also a cat and a woman who was also a skunk, two women who were in some roundabout way the same, sitting together.
+We sat in silence—silences can be so comfortable sometimes!—while I looked up at the painting and The Woman looked out the sliding glass door that led out to my little patio. It must have been two or three minutes of just long, comfortable silence, of just a woman who was also a cat and a woman who was also a skunk, two women who were in some roundabout way the same, sitting together.
 
 ``How large do you suppose it would be?'' The Woman said, startling me out of my reverie.
 
@@ -257,12 +274,11 @@ She nodded.
 
 ``I go back and forth. Sometimes, I feel that it is right in front of me and the house is in the distance, and that it is painted to scale so that it is quite small. Sometimes, I feel like it must be behind the house, or way out beyond the sky, and it is larger than the moon.''
 
-``I see we understand it in the same way. I cannot tell, either. I can tell you, though, that watching Motes brought me the closest to the joy that I have been seeking that I have ever been.'' She frowned down to her glass, now empty. When she continued, her speech was halting, slow, thoughtful. ``Not\ldots for me, not my own joy, and I think not even for her, though the little skunk certainly seems quite joyful. It is\ldots adjacent to the joy. It brought me near to the joy, but did not necessarily bring the joy to me.''
+``I see we understand it in the same way. I cannot tell, either. I can tell you, though, that watching Motes brought me the closest to the joy that I have been seeking than I have ever been.'' She frowned down to her glass, now empty. When she continued, her speech was halting, slow, thoughtful. ``Not\ldots for me, not my own joy, and I think not even for her, though the little skunk certainly seems quite joyful. It is\ldots adjacent to the joy. It brought me near to the joy, but did not necessarily bring the joy to me.''
 
 \secdiv
 
 \label{warmth}
-
 We talked for some time more, The Woman and I, and discussed what it was that we could do to help her find joy. I am sorry to say, though, that we were not able to come up with something.
 
 We circled for some time around meditative acts and how that might work with writing. Automatic writing, perhaps? Should The Woman set up with a note book and a pen and look into some deeper self and begin to write? Should she bid my demon of graphomania visit her, grab her by the wrist, drag her pen across the page that words may flow after it like eager puppies?
@@ -279,39 +295,39 @@ So it was that The Woman returned home with the promise to come back the next da
 
 ``For whom do you write, Rye?''
 
-I had an answer ready for this, dear Readers, for this is something that I think about with some frequency. ``I write for those who need to read.''
+I had an answer ready for this, dear readers, for this is something that I think about with some frequency. ``I write for those who need to read.''
 
-The Woman tilted her head --- she was back to being a skunk, yes, but this is a habit that all of us share within the Ode clade, no matter our shape. ``I have heard it said so often that one should write for oneself and wait for an audience to come.''
+The Woman tilted her head—she was back to being a skunk, yes, but this is a habit that all of us share within the Ode clade, no matter our shape. ``I have heard it said so often that one should write for oneself and wait for an audience to come.''
 
 ``That is popular advice, is it not? There is joy in writing things that no one will read, I will not lie, but that is not how communication works. I would prefer instead to say,''Write what you want to see others reading.'' I would say, ``Write what you believe others should know.'' To write solely for yourself is for the act of journalling, not for the act of creation.''
 
 She furrowed her brow. ``I will admit that I spent last night thinking much on this. I thought of our conversation and the types of things that I might write and was stuck on the fact that what joy I am seeking is unrelated simply to an act but more to a way of being. Why, after all, would I simply put pen to paper and then close the book? That is just the motions of writing without a goal.'' A faint smile tugged at the corner of her mouth and, yes, this, too, was a blessing. ``Though I am told that there is joy in fine pens and fine paper, too.''
 
-I laughed, reached into a pocket, and withdrew my current favorite pen. It is, you may be surprised to hear, quite plain. It is round and it is long. It has a cap that posts on the back. The nib is nothing special. It is a demonstrator --- that is, it has a clear body so that one can see the ink within --- but so are many of my pens. No, there is little special about it overall, other than the fact that it simply fits well within my paw, and that, dear friends, is what is most important in a pen.
+I laughed, reached into a pocket, and withdrew my current favorite pen. It is, you may be surprised to hear, quite plain. It is round and it is long. It has a cap that posts on the back. The nib is nothing special. It is a demonstrator—that is, it has a clear body so that one can see the ink within—but so are many of my pens. No, there is little special about it overall, other than the fact that it simply fits well within my paw, and that, dear friends, is what is most important in a pen.
 
-I handed the pen over to The Woman and she drew a notepad out of the air, write a few short sentences on it with the pen, nodded appreciatively, and handed it back. ``It is a joy to write with, my dear. But to my point, I suspect there is goodness in the act of writing, but not the fulfillment I am seeking.''
+I handed the pen over to The Woman and she drew a notepad out of the air, wrote a few short sentences on it with the pen, nodded appreciatively, and handed it back. ``It is a joy to write with, my dear. But to my point, I suspect there is goodness in the act of writing, but not the fulfillment I am seeking.''
 
 I nodded. ``I would agree with that, yes. You speak of a way of being. You speak of not just creating, but of being a creative.''
 
 ``Just so.''
 
-We sat in silence for a minute or so, simply enjoying our mochas --- readers, by now you must know that we are nothing if not ourselves --- while we each considered the direction of our conversation. It is not comfortable for me to be unable to address a thing that I feel I ought to be able to. When presented with a problem that even sounds like it \emph{might} be within my bailiwick, if I cannot, it is in some key way dysphoric to me. The best I can manage, as I did then, was to recast the problem into a conversation. It does not remove the dysphoria, for I still have not solved anything, but it has set it aside, perhaps just in the other room. There is a selfishness in me.
+We sat in silence for a minute or so, simply enjoying our mochas—readers, by now you must know that we are nothing if not ourselves—while we each considered the direction of our conversation. It is not comfortable for me to be unable to address a thing that I feel I ought to be able to. When presented with a problem that even sounds like it \emph{might} be within my bailiwick, if I cannot, it is in some key way dysphoric to me. The best I can manage, as I did then, was to recast the problem into a conversation. It does not remove the dysphoria, for I still have not solved anything, but it has set it aside, perhaps just in the other room. There is a selfishness in me.
 
 At last, I said, ``Would it be alright if I were to invite over Warmth? It is my beloved up-tree, of course, but ey also has thoughts on this that may help us find inroads to your fulfillment.''
 
 The Woman smiled and nodded. ``By all means, please do.''
 
-We are the most of us not tall women, just as Michelle who was Sasha was not tall: just a little over a meter and a half or, as our literature professor described her in class after she read some saccharine ode by John Keats, ``Miss Michelle Hadje, five foot four.''
+We are the most of us not tall women, just as Michelle who was Sasha was not tall: just a little over a meter and a half or, as our literature professor described her in class after she read some saccharine ode by John Keats, ``Miss Michelle Hadje, five foot four.''\label{keatsheight}
 
-That \emph{most} that I have written just now is doing much work, however. Several of us are taller. Why, I remain just an few centimeters taller than Michelle who was Sasha stood, but I might just as easily be mistaken for her when she appeared as a skunk, so similar are we. Oh! And The Oneirotect's sometimes-partner, Hold My Name Beneath Your Tongue And Know, towers over me by a head.
+That \emph{`most'} that I have written just now is doing much work, however. Several of us are taller. Why, I remain just an few centimeters taller than Michelle who was Sasha stood, but I might just as easily be mistaken for her when she appeared as a skunk, so similar are we. Oh! And The Oneirotect's sometimes-partner, Hold My Name Beneath Your Tongue And Know, towers over me by a head.
 
 Several of us are shorter. The Child, as you will see, is understandably shorter. My little readers who sit cross-legged on carpet squares, perhaps you can picture her, for she is precisely as I have named her: a child.
 
-The Oneirotect, my beloved up-tree, is not a child, and yet she is small. I think she is small enough that some would perhaps confuse her for one in the same way that The Child is a child, and I think that this may indeed be a little bit of transgression in which ey revels. She is tiny, perhaps even smaller than The Child, perhaps only one meter high!
+The Oneirotect, my beloved up-tree, is not quite a child, and yet she is small. I think she is small enough that some would perhaps confuse her for one in the same way that The Child is a child, and I think that this may indeed be a little bit of transgression in which ey revels. She is tiny, perhaps even smaller than The Child, perhaps just over one meter high!
 
-It also has within it a level of energy that may well contribute to this childlike nature. It zips and zooms and careens off walls as easily as does The Child --- easier, perhaps, for even if she is only a few centimeters shorter, she is far more slender, far more lithe, borderline wiry, and she embodies the jitteriness that one might assume were I to call her `critter'.
+It also has within it a level of energy that may well contribute to this childlike nature. It zips and zooms and careens off walls as easily as does The Child—easier, perhaps, for even if she is only a few centimeters shorter, she is far more slender, far more lithe, borderline wiry, and she embodies the jitteriness that one might assume were I to call it `critter'.
 
-But no, ey is not a child. The Child owns that identity for herself. She leaned into the youngest sister of the fifth stanza, she owned \emph{youngest} as meaning childhood, as was her choice. The Oneirotect, however, is simply the most recently claimed line, and is thus the youngest of all Odists with a snippet our superlative friend's words to call its own. Ey lack the being-a-kid-ness and dwell instead in eir own transgressiveness: their fur is mussed and seemingly perpetually stained with the colors of grass and dandelions, her personality is as untameable as the unruly mane atop her head, and its care is as boundless as its emotions.
+But no, ey is not a child. The Child owns that identity for herself. She leaned into the youngest sister of the fifth stanza, she owned \emph{youngest} as meaning childhood, as was her choice. The Oneirotect, however, is simply the most recently claimed line, and is thus the youngest of all Odists with a snippet of our superlative friend's words to call its own. Ey lack the being-a-kid-ness and dwell instead in eir own transgressiveness: their fur is mussed and seemingly perpetually stained with the colors of grass and dandelions, her personality is as untameable as the unruly mane atop her head, and its care is as boundless as its emotions.
 
 They are \emph{all} of our youngest sibling and she is my beloved up-tree.
 
@@ -321,7 +337,7 @@ They are \emph{all} of our youngest sibling and she is my beloved up-tree.
 
 \emph{``If you have the bandwidth, yes.''}
 
-Rather than reply to my message directly, ey simply blinked into being in the entryway of my little townhouse. Had I some other guest over, perhaps it would have skitter-scattered and bounced around as it at times did, but you will remember, dear readers, that The Oneirotect was well acquainted with the tenth stanza, and knew well that they dwelt comfortably in calm and quiet, and so she simply stepped lightly toward us, forking as ey went to pad up to both of us and give each us both hug. I leaned down to give a kiss between the skunklet's ears, ruffled up its already quite tousled mane, and smiled as she quit.
+Rather than reply to my message directly, ey simply blinked into being in the entryway of my little townhouse. Had I some other guest over, perhaps it would have skitter-scattered and bounced around as it at times did, but you will remember, dear readers, that The Oneirotect was well-acquainted with the tenth stanza, and knew well that they dwelt comfortably in calm and quiet, and so she simply stepped lightly toward us, forking as ey went to pad up to both of us and give us each a hug. I leaned down to give a kiss between the skunklet's ears, ruffled up its already quite tousled mane, and smiled as she quit.\label{pronouns}
 
 ``Hi, End Of Endings,'' they said, smiling up to The Woman.
 
@@ -333,15 +349,19 @@ The Woman shrugged, the barest hint of her shoulders to go with an expression th
 
 The Oneirotect nodded. ``Okay. I am glad to hear that you are still living your life,'' she said with a grin, a brief, rhythmic sway of her tail providing accompaniment for the mood. ``What is it you wanted to talk about?''
 
-The Woman looked to me, and I took up the lead. I asked my beloved up-tree, ``Perhaps you could speak to what it is that you actually do my dear. What is it that you enjoy? We have been talking about such things.''
+The Woman looked to me, so I took up the lead. I asked my beloved up-tree, ``Perhaps you could speak to what it is that you actually do my dear. What is it that you enjoy? We have been talking about such things.''
 
-``I have focused on oneirotecture,'' it answered. ``A construct artist, if you must be such a bore. I think of myself most of all as an aficionado of nostalgia.''
+``Well, I think of myself most of all as an aficionado of association, an oneirotect—a construct artist, if you must be such a bore,'' it answered. ``One must bring into being a careful synthesis of memories both sensory and emotive, yes? For that is the substance of significance, yes?''
 
-The Woman tilted her head in that way so familiar to us. ``Nostalgia? Is there a draw to that for you, or is that something you find others hungering for?''
+The Woman tilted her head in that way so familiar to us. ``Nostalgia, then?''
 
-The Oneirotect, clearly delighted by so simple a question, brought its paws together over the table, folded neat and prim. ``Yes!'' It let the humor of that comment stew for a moment before offering something more worthy of the title `answer'. ``In the first decades of the System, it was necessary to create the stuff that makes up our consensual dream, yes? We desired to eat, but none had yet dreamt of food; we wished to surround ourselves with cherished things, but even the platonic form of such did not yet exist.
+``Yes!''
 
-``I find joy in creating these constructs --- these \emph{things}, this \emph{stuff}, all that we interact with here --- but most of all I enjoy the research that goes into that.''
+``Is there a draw to that for you? Or is that something you find others hungering for?''
+
+The Oneirotect, clearly delighted by so simple a question, brought its paws together over the table, folded neat and prim. ``Yes, and also yes!'' It let the humor of that comment stew for a moment before offering something more worthy of the title `answer'. ``In the first decades of the System, it was necessary to create the stuff that makes up our consensual dream, yes? We desired to eat, but none had yet dreamt of food; we wished to surround ourselves with cherished things, but even the platonic form of such did not yet exist.
+
+``I find joy in creating these constructs—these \emph{things}, this \emph{stuff}, all that we interact with here—but most of all I enjoy the research that goes into that.''
 
 ``I see,'' The Woman said. ``So you worked on early foods, then? On staples, or on more beloved things?''
 
@@ -349,15 +369,17 @@ The Oneirotect, clearly delighted by so simple a question, brought its paws toge
 
 I chuckled, shrugged.
 
-``Very well. I favor culinary constructs now, but that has only become the case since I met Codrin. That said, I did begin with fruits! I wanted to recreate some of what was lost to the climate disaster. Most of the heavy lifting had already been done by the time I began exploring oneirotecture, but there remained gaps in what was available. That experience was most formative, but it was Codrin's cooking that sent me down this path.''
+``Very well. I favor culinary constructs now, but that has only become the case since I met Codrin. That said, I did begin with fruits we never got to try growing up in the Central Corridor. Most of the heavy lifting with staples had already been done by the time I began exploring oneirotecture, but there remained gaps in what was available. That experience was most formative, but it was Codrin's cooking that sent me down this path.''
 
-``Not █████? Not Codrin and Dear's partner?'' The Woman asked. She asked, of course, after one remembered fondly, and one whose name is not yours to know, dear readers, or perhaps you know it intimately, but with a wink and a nudge like a joke kept between us. ``Are they not the chef?''
+``Not \Partner? Not Codrin and Dear's partner?'' The Woman asked. She asked, of course, after one remembered fondly, and one whose name is not yours to know, dear readers, or perhaps you know it intimately, but with a wink and a nudge like a joke kept between us. ``Are they not the chef?''
 
-The Oneirotect smiled wryly. ``Well, sure, but my interest lies more in the food that others love to their core. █████'s food is delightful, yes. It is \emph{enjoyable,} and often it is \emph{loved,} but it is not really \emph{beloved.}\label{rakoff} I would rather focus on the food those remember with fondness their mothers and grandmothers cooking. Remembered foods. Cherished foods, yes?''
+The Oneirotect smiled wryly. ``Well, sure, but my interest lies more in the food that others love to their core. \Partner's food is delightful, yes. It is \emph{enjoyable,} and often it is \emph{loved,} but it is not really \emph{beloved.}\label{rakoff} I would rather focus on the food those remember with fondness their mothers and grandmothers cooking. Remembered foods. Cherished foods, yes?''
 
 ``I suppose this is where the nostalgia comes in, then, yes? Reaching back for the things that others loved, rather than simply ate out of necessity?''
 
-The Oneirotect tilted its head, unruly mane falling over its eyes. Out of instinct, I reached over to brush it back into some semblance of order and got a rather wet lick to my wrist for my trouble. My friends, my beloved up-tree is quite weird. ``It is not as if none before me had dreamt of food just like grandma used to make, but what I offered was particularly attuned to that, yes.''
+The Oneirotect tilted its head, unruly mane falling over its eyes. Out of instinct, I reached over to brush it back into some semblance of order and got a rather wet lick to my wrist for my trouble. My friends, my beloved up-tree is quite weird.
+
+``It is not as if none before me had dreamt of food just like grandma used to make, but what I offered was particularly attuned to that, yes.''
 
 ``You speak of research and gaps in selections and beloved meals,'' I said. ``It sounds like you speak most of all of making things for others, or for all, rather than for yourself.''
 
@@ -369,17 +391,17 @@ There was a moment of silence as The Woman parsed this, her gaze distant. When h
 
 There was such a pang within me that I had not felt in ages, for The Oneirotect was right. There was some years back, some centuries back, another Which Offers Heat And Warmth In Fire. And then, one day, there was not. They worked and strove and wept and bled over their chosen path, and then they were naught.
 
-They --- that other Warmth In Fire --- was lost to us. They were gone from us. Their art took them from us, it killed them. Such is the danger of art, dear readers: it takes as easily --- more easily! --- than it gives. It was some centuries back, but-- ah! Centuries change only the flavor of the loss when one cannot forget it. It is a loss that still stings to this very day.
+They—that other Warmth In Fire—was lost to us. They were gone from us. Their art took them from us, it killed them. Such is the danger of art, dear readers: it takes as easily—more easily!—than it gives. It was some centuries back, but-- ah! Centuries change only the flavor of the loss when one cannot forget it. It is a loss that still stings to this very day.
 
-``Ah,'' The Woman said, her expression falling subtly --- nearly too subtly to notice but by this point, I was quite focused on everything about her. ``Right. I remember hearing of a death within the clade early on. Systime 54, was it? I was rather disconnected from the clade at the time, I am sorry to say, and was unable to focus enough to learn of just who.''
+``Ah,'' The Woman said, her expression falling subtly—nearly too subtly to notice, but by this point, I was quite focused on everything about her. ``Right. I remember hearing of a death within the clade early on. Systime 54, was it? I was rather disconnected from the clade at the time, I am sorry to say, and was unable to focus enough to learn of just who.''
 
-I nodded. ``But by then, Dear --- or, rather the instance who would become Dear --- had been forked, and so Warmth filled that vacancy. Ey took on the name Which Offers Heat And Warmth In Fire when Dear became what it is.''
+I nodded. ``But by then, Dear—or, rather the instance who would become Dear—had been forked, and so Warmth filled that vacancy. Ey took on the name Which Offers Heat And Warmth In Fire when Dear became what it is.''
 
 Warmth struggled to speak at first, caught up in emotion. It had been Dear at the time, and watched as who-was-Warmth descended into despair and, eventually, quit. Finally, it nodded, saying, ``I am that which was left behind when Dear chose to forget the Name.''
 
 Now, perhaps my younger uploads or those who have not stuck their noses deep into cladistics, snuffling about for interesting thises or surprising thats, may not quite understand the import here, and so I will tell you a story, much as it was told to me by The Instance Artist:
 
-Many years ago, it forked and went out for a walk along the street. It put the Name of our superlative friend, of The Dreamer who dreams us all, int an exocortex and then began to change. It forked and forked and forked as it walked that endless city that it called home at the time. It changed its shape, from stocky to slight. It changed its species. It changed its sense of smell, its sense of sight. It changed its hearing --- and you must understand, as a fennec, its ears are enormous; when it gives a shake of its head, its tall ears bow under the momentum. It changed the way it thought about our history. It changed the way it thought about forking. It changed the way it engaged with everything around it.
+Many years ago, it forked and went out for a walk along the street. It put the Name of our superlative friend, of The Dreamer who dreams us all, into an exocortex and then began to change. It forked and forked and forked as it walked that endless city that it called home at the time. It changed its shape, from stocky to slight. It changed its species. It changed its sense of smell, its sense of sight. It changed its hearing—and you must understand, as a fennec, its ears are enormous; when it gives a shake of its head, its tall ears bow under the momentum. It changed the way it thought about our history. It changed the way it thought about forking. It changed the way it engaged with everything around it.
 
 Its goal was to change its sensorium enough that it would not be able to access the Name of our beloved Dreamer again.
 
@@ -397,7 +419,7 @@ It did not see her for months after that. None of us did. Weeks and months of kn
 
 It did not talk to her, friends, you must understand. It did not talk to her, and she did not talk to it, other than a notification that she would be taking the name Which Offers Heat And Warmth In Fire.
 
-``I sat with a good book while it took that dire walk between skunk and fennec, and when it returned, it had become something unrecognizable to me. I could see the direction it took, but not the road it followed; it had become something alien, and the prospect of disappearing after that felt rather a lot more like dying than becoming, and so I chose to yield my name to it --- for that Dear was that of me who had already become, yes? --- and spent some months working to earn the name Warmth In Fire.''
+``I sat with a good book while it took that dire walk between skunk and fennec, and when it returned, it had become something unrecognizable to me. I could see the direction it took, but not the road it followed; it had become something alien, and the prospect of disappearing after that felt rather a lot more like dying than becoming, and so I chose to yield my name to it—for that Dear was that of me who had already become, yes?—and spent some months working to earn the name Warmth In Fire.''
 
 The Woman furrowed her brow in that ineffably still way of hers. ``I remember that there was talk within the clade about names, yes, and the general shape of what had happened, that there was some furor about the fact that a down-tree might accept a later line than an up-tree, though I never did understand the import that some placed on that.'' There was a smile, a hint of a bow, and a quiet addition: ``You are so incredibly yourself, though, I cannot picture you as ever having been a Dear, and certainly never as a fennec.''
 
@@ -407,13 +429,13 @@ There followed a moment of The Oneirotect visibly mastering a note of annihilati
 
 The Woman smirked, nodded.
 
-``There were those within the clade who fussed and fussed and fussed, and I would be remiss if I did not say that we had --- and, as Warmth mentions, continue to fuss --- about the role that names play in identity. We will ever be who we are, though, yes?''
+``There were those within the clade who fussed and fussed and fussed, and I would be remiss if I did not say that we had—and, as Warmth mentions, continue to fuss—about the role that names play in identity. We will ever be who we are, though, yes?''
 
 My beloved up-tree spent some time pensively structuring its thoughts, trying to reclaim some sort of agency before it fell into a negativity spiral; such topics as these are always especially difficult for us to stumble across, and it had already started to recite some of those familiar phrases it so often repeats even to this day. ``You have come to Rye and I searching for joy through creativity. I wonder: What do you imagine yourself to be, End Of Endings, other than the only one living there I get to call `kitty' from time to time?''
 
-The Woman laughed --- and what a blessing a laugh is in comparison to a smile! --- and, with no effort expended on her own part, fell right into that very shape: a kitty. Kitty! And what a delightful little name. You will remember, my friends, that not every instance of her changing shape was occasion for weariness or discomfort; she fell joyfully into felinity, into this pantherine shape. ``I like that you call me kitty, my dear,'' she said, still smiling. ``And I am always happy when I think of becoming such as occasion for you to do so.''
+The Woman laughed—and what a blessing a laugh is in comparison to a smile!—and, with no effort expended on her own part, fell right into that very shape: a kitty. Kitty! And what a delightful little name. You will remember, my friends, that not every instance of her changing shape was occasion for weariness or discomfort; she fell joyfully into felinity, into this pantherine shape. ``I like that you call me kitty, my dear,'' she said, still smiling. ``And I am always happy when I think of becoming such as occasion for you to do so.''
 
-It beamed, smug and sly and looking quite pleased for the change it had had a paw in working. It was very \emph{not} Dear in that moment --- it was (and is!) very Warmth In Fire because, while it shared some of that quippiness that Dear was so well-known for, Dear shared little of my `motherly warmth', as it put it. Dear did not inherit such from me --- or perhaps had lost it over long years with too many quips --- but my beloved up-tree did.
+It beamed, smug and sly and looking quite pleased for the change it had had a paw in working. It was very \emph{not} Dear in that moment—it was (and is!) very Warmth In Fire because, while it shared some of that quippiness that Dear was so well-known for, Dear shared little of my `motherly warmth', as it put it. Dear did not inherit such from me—or perhaps had lost it over long years with too many quips—but my beloved up-tree did.
 
 Here was The Oneirotect being warm. Here was The Oneirotect being insightful and supportive. Here was her taking control for The Woman's sake. Here was it looking for some way to stop trauma-dumping on her and start guiding her closer toward self-understanding, toward a resolution, toward peace.
 
@@ -425,17 +447,17 @@ The Woman sat with this in thoughtfulness, her expression perhaps now distant, p
 
 When once more her eyes returned to us, her expression had settled into what, I do not know exactly. Pensive? Introspective? I cannot say, dear readers. I cannot say.
 
-``I do feel joy, yes. I think that one of the things that sparked this train of thought was actually one such case of joy. I visited No Hesitation for a simple coffee date, and from there I was left with joy that lasted some few days. It was a comfort to me.'' The faintest of smiles turned up the corners of her mouth. ``No, it was not just a comfort, it was a thing I clung to jealously, and when I felt that it was being slowly parceled out to others at home --- for they too deserve joy --- and when I was asked about it by Ever Dream, I felt as though it was slipping away from me with no recourse. Is joy to always do such? Every time I receive such joy, is it only to slip away?''
+``I do feel joy, yes. I think that one of the things that sparked this train of thought was actually one such case of joy. I visited No Hesitation for a simple coffee date, and from there I was left with joy that lasted some few days. It was a comfort to me.'' The faintest of smiles turned up the corners of her mouth. ``No, it was not just a comfort, it was a thing I clung to jealously, and when I felt that it was being slowly parceled out to others at home—for they too deserve joy—and when I was asked about it by Ever Dream, I felt as though it was slipping away from me with no recourse. Is joy to always do such? Every time I receive such joy, is it only to slip away?''
 
-There was a sense then in The Oneirotect of discomfort at this sentiment: that joy is fleeting. It had worked so hard to become able to appreciate the joys it had, despite the equally-ephemeral agonies it suffered at the hands of perfectionism and impostor syndrome --- as do we all at times, yes?
+There was a sense then in The Oneirotect of discomfort at this sentiment: that joy is fleeting. It had worked so hard to become able to appreciate the joys it had, despite the equally-ephemeral agonies it suffered at the hands of perfectionism and impostor syndrome—as do we all at times, yes?
 
 ``It will always be true that you shared that comfort together, End Of Endings,'' she said, my own maternal concern echoed in its voice, so many hours spent helping hold eir head above water while they wallowed in a spiral of self-loathing. ``What is it that slipped away?''
 
 ``The\ldots{}'' The Woman started, then immediately fell off into silence. There was a frown on her face, though it was one of concentration rather than consternation. ``What it feels has slipped away is the possibility of the permanence of joy, or even joy that lasts longer than suffering. I suppose that is what I am seeking in this exercise. I am seeking joy that lasts. Even if not forever, I am seeking joy that lasts. I am seeking intentionality in joy. I am seeking agency in joy.''
 
-My beloved up-tree was along for the ride up until the word `agency,' at which it scrunched up its face and reared eir head back as though someone had --- as often I have done --- pressed on the tip of her little nose --- or, it is not so little; it is a big honker of a schnoz as some cartoon might have. How often had ey struggled for its own agency? How often pawing feebly at a thing for years and years and feeling as if nothing it made met its own standards? How often wallowing and feeling helpless but to wallow? How often caught in a spate of ineffectual pining, of disinterest born of despair, of the sort of pain that festers and festers until she broke down into tears and overflowed? Ah--! But it replied, ``Is the pain as well not itself as fleeting? Does it not fly away in the wind when a gust of joy blows your way? Does despair not crumble at the feet of relief, euphoria, pleasure? Is it not dashed away on the rocks of even one moment of the right kind of comfort?'' It fell silent for a moment, gaze drifting outward toward those very same leaves as caught the Woman's eye. ``It is still worth it, is it not? It must be worth it, or else all the world's a horror.''\label{shakespeare}
+My beloved up-tree was along for the ride up until the word `agency,' at which it scrunched up its face and reared eir head back as though someone had—as often I have done—pressed on the tip of her little nose—or, it is not so little; it is a big honker of a schnoz as some cartoon might have. How often had ey struggled for its own agency? How often pawing feebly at a thing for years and years and feeling as if nothing it made met its own standards? How often wallowing and feeling helpless but to wallow? How often caught in a spate of ineffectual pining, of disinterest born of despair, of the sort of pain that festers and festers until she broke down into tears and overflowed? Ah--! But it replied, ``Is the pain as well not itself as fleeting? Does it not fly away in the wind when a gust of joy blows your way? Does despair not crumble at the feet of relief, euphoria, pleasure? Is it not dashed away on the rocks of even one moment of the right kind of comfort?'' It fell silent for a moment, gaze drifting outward toward those very same leaves as caught the Woman's eye. ``It is still worth it, is it not? It must be worth it, or else all the world's a horror.''\label{shakespeare}
 
-Here, now, was a moment of quiet between us all as The Oneirotect grappled with its silently tearful emotions. I have spoken of the ways in which we cry, the whys and wherefores, the shamelessness of it all, and so it grappled with its own whys and wherefores, its own shamelessness, and we --- The Woman and I --- looked on with curiousity and compassion and empathy, for we felt also some of these things.
+Here, now, was a moment of quiet between us all as The Oneirotect grappled with its silently tearful emotions. I have spoken of the ways in which we cry, the whys and wherefores, the shamelessness of it all, and so it grappled with its own whys and wherefores, its own shamelessness, and we—The Woman and I—looked on with curiousity and compassion and empathy, for we felt also some of these things.
 
 Here, my friends, I must explain something. I must explain the Warmth In Fire before Warmth In Fire. I must explain The Sightwright who is no more.
 
@@ -443,7 +465,7 @@ It is as my beloved up-tree says: we also suffer. Have I not spoken of such? Of
 
 The Sightwright suffered as I do, as The Oneirotect does, and perhaps even as The Woman did.\label{winthrop} It was so long ago that they left us, left me, and though I remember, I remember through the lens of centuries, through a glass, darkly.\label{1cor13} They suffered because of their art. They suffered because of the world around them. They suffered perhaps because we are all built to suffer.
 
-They suffered as do my beloved up-tree and I, but they also suffered as did --- I must explain, also, or perhaps remind --- Death Itself and I Do Not Know.
+They suffered as do my beloved up-tree and I, but they also suffered as did—I must explain, also, or perhaps remind—Death Itself and I Do Not Know.
 
 They quit.
 
@@ -451,7 +473,7 @@ They suffered too much. They were, and then they were not.
 
 I must explain and I must remind to set before you the context of what The Oneirotect said next.
 
-My beloved up-tree's tears did not ebb before ey spoke. No, in fact, they flowed and flowed, a cascade of emotion trickling and then creeping and then washing across its face. I have spoken about the way I cry already, and, well, surely they got it from somewhere, yes? ``There has been enough of death in the clade, my dear,'' it plead, wiping its eyes to no avail. Fur remained wet. Nose remained clogged. Voice remained round. Ey pulled eir paws away from eir face, looking appalled at the strands of spit and snot and salty tears. ``Please tell me that you do not intend to quit,'' it croaked through another sob. ``You will not leave us, right? Please say yes.''
+My beloved up-tree's tears did not ebb before ey spoke. No, in fact, they flowed and flowed, a cascade of emotion trickling and then creeping and then washing across its face. I have spoken about the way I cry already, and, well, surely they got it from somewhere, yes? ``There has been enough of death in the clade, my dear,'' it plead, wiping its eyes to no avail. Fur remained wet. Nose remained clogged. Voice remained round. Ey pulled eir paws away from eir face, looking appalled at the strands of spit and snot and salty tears. ``You do not intend to quit, do you?'' it croaked through another sob, voice small. ``You will be with us for a good while yet, right? Please say yes.''
 
 The Woman smiled, and this smile was not a blessing but a benediction, and it was not for me but for solely The Oneirotect. It was my job only to witness this smile, this validation of pain. ``No, dear one. I do not intend to quit.'' She let these words hang there in the air before us, a monument to such an intent. ``No, I am seeking not just meaning but purpose. I have explored meaningful things and pleasurable things, but now I wish to explore direction.''
 
@@ -459,7 +481,7 @@ The Oneirotect is not The Child, but my beloved up-tree is also my very own litt
 
 At this, The Woman and I smiled. There perhaps was also room for laughter, but a simpler acknowledgment was required for now. A box of tissues was summoned. Glasses of water. Hugs and soft pets and gentle kisses between the ears such as might offer comfort. Such are the realities of a good cry, yes? The distasteful and the compassionate realities both? They are as worthy of acknowledgment as the reality of breath, sys-side. We do not cease being subject to our gross anatomy.
 
-``A reminder: art is not strictly joy, but also suffering,'' I cautioned most gently. ``With art comes fear.\label{artandfear} There is suffering of a sort in failure. There is suffering in falling short, as well; even if you succeed in an endeavor in your own eyes, you may feel the pain of lack.'' Despite her expectant silence, I held up a paw as though to forestall comments, for even movement is communication. ``You are strong, End Of Endings, and I know --- I think we know --- that you are up to such a task, but I must remind you as well.''
+``A reminder: art is not strictly joy, but also suffering,'' I cautioned most gently. ``With art comes fear.\label{artandfear} There is suffering of a sort in failure. There is suffering in falling short, as well; even if you succeed in an endeavor in your own eyes, you may feel the pain of lack.'' Despite her expectant silence, I held up a paw as though to forestall comments, for even movement is communication. ``You are strong, End Of Endings, and I know—I think we know—that you are up to such a task, but I must remind you as well.''
 
 The Woman bowed her head, though whether in acknowledgment or a pensive shift in her thoughts, I could not tell. Perhaps it was both. Perhaps she felt then as I have so much lately: as though the world is not quite as it seems, as though there is something more beneath or above. Perhaps she felt keenly our superlative friend. ``I understand, of course. I suppose that has also been the case in my explorations of late, that there ever be this balance.'' She lifted her head to smile wryly. ``There is, as you say, suffering in many things, but the suffering of failure carries a particular tang of disappointment, does it not?''
 
@@ -467,9 +489,9 @@ The Oneirotect finally recomposed itself, reassured of The Woman's longevity. ``
 
 She paused, planting its paws between its knees to lean forward in eir seat. ``There is vanity in art, and it is in vanity that we artists dwell. We mean to expose some part of ourselves, and there is torture in knowing \emph{precisely} how wrong every act has turned out.'' The Oneirotect's fervor softened into something more familiar to me, more an expression of shared adversity than the bitter lesson of so many shattered dreams littering the waters in its wake. ``That is why we must do this for more than ourselves, End Of Endings, why our art must have its own value lest we fall into the perpetual pursuit of some cruel point.''
 
-The Woman tilted her head --- that habit that so often follows each and every one of us around like a little puppy. ``You mean to consider my audience?''
+The Woman tilted her head—that habit that so often follows each and every one of us around like a little puppy. ``You mean to consider my audience?''
 
-I wobbled a paw. ``While that is perhaps some of it --- a great deal, even, as that validation does drive one on --- there is more to art than that.'' I am not ashamed to say that I fall so easily back into that teacher mode of speaking. We were such for how many years, phys-side? And I have been such off and on for how many more, here? ``You speak of purpose: it is also the sharing of what goes \emph{into} art, too. I write for myself, yes, for the joy of it, and I write for others, too. But if my failures are instructive, then shall I not also pass that instruction on to others? I teach. I write \emph{with} others. I read and give feedback.''
+I wobbled a paw. ``While that is perhaps some of it—a great deal, even, as that validation does drive one on—there is more to art than that.'' I am not ashamed to say that I fall so easily back into that teacher mode of speaking. We were such for how many years, phys-side? And I have been such off and on for how many more, here? ``You speak of purpose: it is also the sharing of what goes \emph{into} art, too. I write for myself, yes, for the joy of it, and I write for others, too. But if my failures are instructive, then shall I not also pass that instruction on to others? I teach. I write \emph{with} others. I read and give feedback.''
 
 At this she smiled. ``Teaching has stuck with us, after all. You have already mentioned communalism, too.''
 
@@ -505,9 +527,9 @@ I thought back to my first creations, to the first stories and poems and novels
 
 I nodded. ``Beyond tiring. I do not know how it felt for Warmth, but for me, I would move in fits and starts, now loving my art and now feeling like it was trash, that I was treading already trod ground, that it was derivative. I suppose I had to learn how to learn, first, but even after that. I wanted to have become a great author, without going through the becoming part.''
 
-The Oneirotect snickered, resting a paw on my knee. ``I had the advantage of your example to learn from,'' she started, looking to End Of Endings. ``And my predecessor's. I \emph{started} easily enough, but the despair of mediocrity ever tainted my motivation. That first week was full to brimming with excitement, that second worthy but deprived of euphoria, and on the third I inevitably stumbled into a wallowing spiral until the fourth, when I swore I would never try again, only for a new ambition to spring up the next.'' It shook its head, as though in disbelief at itself. I found it understandable, dear readers, and perhaps you do as well. Even after three hundred years, the ambition always returns. Perhaps it was not disbelief, then, that led my beloved up-tree to shake eir head, but a world-weary recognition of this --- but I digress. ``I have not improved very much at all in this respect; it is agony, but it has at least turned out to be sustainable. I only wish it did not \emph{hurt} so much.''
+The Oneirotect snickered, resting a paw on my knee. ``I had the advantage of your example to learn from,'' she started, looking to End Of Endings. ``And my predecessor's. I \emph{started} easily enough, but the despair of mediocrity ever tainted my motivation. That first week was full to brimming with excitement, that second worthy but deprived of euphoria, and on the third I inevitably stumbled into a wallowing spiral until the fourth, when I swore I would never try again, only for a new ambition to spring up the next.'' It shook its head, as though in disbelief at itself. I found it understandable, dear readers, and perhaps you do as well. Even after three hundred years, the ambition always returns. Perhaps it was not disbelief, then, that led my beloved up-tree to shake eir head, but a world-weary recognition of this—but I digress. ``I have not improved very much at all in this respect; it is agony, but it has at least turned out to be sustainable. I only wish it did not \emph{hurt} so much.''
 
-Furrowing her brow, The Woman looked down to her glass of water. ``More complicated, indeed,'' she murmured, more to herself than anything --- so evidently so that my beloved up-tree and I let her have that moment for herself, as though hesitant to interrupt it. ``You speak of works you would not let see the light of day, Rye, and of the pain of creation. You both clearly still find meaning in it --- as do Slow Hours and Beholden, of course, and Motes --- so I am left wondering what one does with these feelings of\ldots ah, I hesitate to say, but perhaps they are feelings of unworthiness. What does one do when one's works feel mediocre, especially if one is to create also for others?''
+Furrowing her brow, The Woman looked down to her glass of water. ``More complicated, indeed,'' she murmured, more to herself than anything—so evidently so that my beloved up-tree and I let her have that moment for herself, as though hesitant to interrupt it. ``You speak of works you would not let see the light of day, Rye, and of the pain of creation. You both clearly still find meaning in it—as do Slow Hours and Beholden, of course, and Motes—so I am left wondering what one does with these feelings of\ldots ah, I hesitate to say, but perhaps they are feelings of unworthiness. What does one do when one's works feel mediocre, especially if one is to create also for others?''
 
 It took me some time to disentangle The Woman's words. They were starting to fall into a jumble, into a garden path of wanderings. Perhaps you may even sense that in me, friends, the ways in which my words wander, their circuitous routes, though I do not think that she was nearly so taken with language as I am, or at least not in quite the same way. I think she was simply tired. She certainly looked it, with the slump of her shoulders and the drowsiness in her features she nonetheless seemed intent on masking.
 
@@ -516,5 +538,3 @@ It took me some time to disentangle The Woman's words. They were starting to fal
 The answer felt less than satisfactory, or perhaps not quite as true as it could have been, for there was work of mine that I loved for this utility and yet was unwilling to publish, not now, not work from when I was in the novitiate in my art. There is work of mine even now that I hate, that I loathe for, as The Oneirotect said, the wallowing spiral that spawned it and it makes me wonder, and at times it makes me tremble, that I must say there is worth in art when so much of mine feels worthless.
 
 ``End Of Endings, my dear,'' The Oneirotect said, slipping down from her stool, ``I am beginning to see myself in you, and that fills me with fear. You have promised me that you do not intend to quit, but if there \emph{is} that of death in you, whatever art you choose will bring you perilously close to the brink time and time and time again.'' It padded up beside The Woman, placing both paws on her knees and looking up into her face. ``Tell me, kitty, is it better to disappear into a blizzard, or should someone lay down their weary bones in a grave when they are through?''
-
-\secdiv

idumea/content/006.tex

@@ -18,7 +18,7 @@ The Woman and her superlative friend moved together as one. They were the same p
 
 The Woman and her superlative friend, when next they clicked their implants into place and delved into the familiar second home that was the 'net, they were shunted away into dreams and left there to wilt, to languish, to desiccate and wither and be blown away by who cared what wind. They were knocked a meter to the right and back in some metaphorical way, their immersive tech refusing to relinquish its grip on their reality so that, from the outside, they only slept, and yet within, they dreamed along the filaments of those implants, trapped within that hardware, for the nature of getting lost was a coma mediated by integrated technology. They were both torn asunder in some ineffable way. For Michelle who was Sasha, those two identities were carved apart—though only halfway—and, when her superlative friend, her beloved RJ, gave of emself to create the world that was Lagrange, a System for those minds who chose to upload, she dove after em in as soon as she could afford.
 
-The Woman and her superlative friend were ever bound up in each other, for they were the same person twice over, and since this world was in some ineffable way made \emph{of} em, Michelle who was Sasha and The Woman who was Michelle felt she had no other choice, even if the unique trauma of getting lost meant that she ever felt that split, that inextricable Sasha-ness and Michelle-ness that someone, some bureaucrat that wanted her lost, inadvertently tried to reify, and it was not until the ability to fork was added to the System that she was able to alleviate herself of such. Or, if not herself, at least she could ensure that those new copies of herself, the Ode clade, would be without such pain.
+The Woman and her superlative friend were ever bound up in each other, for they were the same person twice over, and since this world was in some ineffable way made \emph{of} em, Michelle who was Sasha and The Woman who was Michelle felt she had no other choice, even if the unique trauma of getting lost meant that she ever felt that split, that inextricable Sasha-ness and Michelle-ness that someone, some bureaucrat that wanted her lost, inadvertently tried to reify, and it was not until the ability to fork—to copy oneself and multiply, to let instances merge back down or to continue on and become their own people—was added to the System that she was able to alleviate herself of such. Or, if not herself, at least she could ensure that those new copies of herself, the Ode clade, would be without such pain.
 
 The Woman and her clade were never wholly without, for such is the way of trauma, yes?
 
@@ -44,7 +44,7 @@ But The Woman who was Michelle who was Sasha would not let that happen. She \emp
 
 And then, one day, her superlative friend disappeared. Days went by, and weeks, and then before the month was out, she received a letter detailing the ways in which ey hoped to move forward, how ey would likely die, but at least ey would die in the act of creation, of making a new world of utter freedom, where dreaming together was the warp of the world, and intent the weft, and ey both succeeded and failed, for now the world in which we live is one woven from dreams and intent, but ey is absent. It was in that letter that ey had written the ode that became the source of our names, and so we live out our lives embodying these fragments of em, but even still, ey failed because ey is absent. Ey became the weaver.
 
-And still, ey succeeded. Ey succeeded because ey became the loom. Ey became the fabric. Ey became the shuttle and the pirn and the batten and the comb and the heddle, and the world is the lathe and we are the treadles working and working and working and we feel em beneath our fingertips as they trace along the weave, but ey is not here.
+And still, ey succeeded. Ey succeeded because ey became the loom while we became the fabric. Ey became the shuttle and the pirn and the batten and the comb and the heddle, and the world is the lathe and we are the treadles working and working and working and we feel em beneath our fingertips as they trace along the weave, but ey is not here.
 
 But I digress.
 
@@ -70,7 +70,7 @@ What is one to do when faced with the enormity of love? What subtle powers does
 
 The Woman and I and all of our kin have not always had the best of luck with love, nor with standing up for ourselves. When I say that we have more traumas than simply getting lost, our unluck in love accounts for some sizeable portion of this.
 
-We struggled with the role that our bodies played, yes? For Michelle who was Sasha was short—as we are—and she was fat—as many of us remain—and she was so-called blessed with breasts to match. So-called by those who wished to in some way claim ownership of them. When she pursued a reduction, her back thanked her and those who bestowed such praise wondered why why why she would withhold that goodness from them.
+We struggled with the role that our bodies played, yes? For Michelle who was Sasha was short—as we are—and she was fat—as many of us remain—and she was so-called blessed with breasts to match; so called by those who wished to in some way claim ownership of them. When she pursued a reduction, her back thanked her and those who bestowed such praise wondered why why why she would withhold that goodness from them.
 
 And yet even that did not stop such attention, for we were, it seems, worth a certain set of things to others—to those beyond our friends and our superlative friend with whom we remain in love—and so why would they hunt for aught else?
 
@@ -116,7 +116,7 @@ She returned home after that talk with me and my beloved up-tree, with your humb
 
 My dear, dear friends, the longer I go on, the more I pace around through quiet rooms the more these words swirl around me in some quiet maelstrom, the more I wish that I could do the same. Sleep brings no relief. Within my dreams there are yet more words. The boundary between waking and sleeping is so faint, now—I write even in my sleep! My dreams are of The Woman! My dreams are of me sitting at my desk with my pen in my paw and paper before me, of ink on page and words flowing after like an eager puppy!—the boundary is so faint now that I have more than once awoken from uneasy sleep to found that I had indeed at some point sat down at my desk and written word after word after word, after word and word and word. I have found pages of endlessly repeating phrases. I have found scribbles that are doubtless words and yet which I cannot decipher, and I cannot remember my dreams well enough to say what they may have been.
 
-Did The Woman dream, we may wonder? Did she lay down and sleep after that conversation and look up to the constellations in the fabric of the sky, close her eyes, and then let play within her head some scene, some dream within a dream within a dream within a dream, some stream of meaning that the subconscious mind as dreamed by The Dreamer of the world dreamed forth?
+Did The Woman dream, we may wonder? Did she lay down and sleep after that conversation and look up to the constellations in the fabric of the sky, close her eyes, and then let play within her head some scene, some dream within a dream within a dream within a dream,\label{to-} some stream of meaning that the subconscious mind as dreamed by The Dreamer of the world dreamed forth?
 
 I do not know.
 
@@ -128,13 +128,13 @@ For she is our Pinocchio, is she not? She is our Pinocchio in reverse. She is th
 
 The Woman then had her inciting incident, did she not? She had that moment when she met with Her Friend and felt after some form of joy that she could not quite put into words, and with that joy, against that joy, she felt the loss of joy over time, the way it was secreted within the treats that she delivered quietly to her cocladists and the way it seemed to trickle out of her life. And the second part of this incitation was the way that this fading of joy was cast against the stasis of her stanza, the suffering supposedly bestowed upon them. It showed to her plainly the impermanence of such joys, and thus, by omission, the possibility of a permanent pleasure.
 
-She is and we are of a neurodivergent type, and so her approach to hunting for such joy as she imagined was of such a type as that: thorough and curious, methodical and whimsical. She set before herself by rule of fives five investigations: food, sex, entertainment, creation, and change. The first four of these brought joy, and even superlative joy, but not the joy she sought, and before her lay the prospect of change, and yet such a prospect was exhausting before she had even begun.
+She is and we are of a neurodivergent type, and so her approach to hunting for such joy as she imagined was of such a type as that: thorough and curious, methodical and whimsical. She set before herself by rule of fives five investigations: food, sex, entertainment, creation, and change. The first four of these brought joy, and even superlative joy, but not the joy she sought, not the stillness she sought, and before her lay the prospect of change, and yet such a prospect was exhausting before she had even begun.
 
 And so now we may only guess at the dreams of one such as her, one who lives within our consensual dream, one who is dreamed by The Dreamer who was at one point our superlative friend.
 
 Here is my supposition:
 
-The Woman went walking. In her dream, she went walking, though it was not out on her field, the one we have seen so often. No, instead she went walking out her bedroom and through her secret door, out through the door and onto the street of the city that had become so familiar to her over the years, that city with the brick pavers and the fallen leaves which skittered so anxiously around her feet. She went walking in her dream and made her way through unnervingly empty city streets, walking and walking and walking. She passed the trolley stops. She passed the coffee shops. She passed, perhaps, the setting sun.
+The Woman went walking. In her dream, she went walking, though it was not out on her field, the one we have seen so often. No, instead she went walking out her bedroom and through her secret door, out through the door and onto the street of the city that had become so familiar to her over the years, that city with the brick pavers and the fallen leaves which skittered so anxiously around her feet. She went walking in her dream and made her way through unnervingly empty city streets, walking and walking and walking. She passed the trolley stops. She passed the coffee shops. She passed, perhaps, the setting sun.\emph{stop-for-death}
 
 And at some final point—final!—she came across a square set within the cement of the sidewalk perhaps two meters on a side where the concrete gave way to a metal grate in the form of a sunburst, and in the middle there was a circle of soil, good and clean.
 
@@ -148,7 +148,7 @@ This is my supposition for The Woman and her dream after she came home from my h
 
 \secdiv
 
-The longer we live—and, my dear readers, I will remind you that I am now 323 years old!—the more evident it becomes to us that there is a fractally cyclical nature to life: the years spiral up and the months spiral around and the days spiral forward—weeks are a construct borne out of our inherited faith but perhaps they too spiral—and so we live within a fractally cyclical tangle of time.
+The longer we live—and, my dear readers, I will remind you that I am now 323 years old!—the more evident it becomes to us that there is a fractally cyclical nature to life: the years spiral up and the months spiral around and the days spiral forward—weeks are a construct borne out of our inherited faith but perhaps they too spiral—and so we live within a fractally cyclical tangle of time.\label{florilegium}
 
 I know this. You know this, I am sure, on however instinctual a level, for you are clever and bright and you see the world with fresher eyes than I have. You are cleverer and brighter and fresher than your humble narrator who paces the empty rooms of her house and fills them with the quiet muttering of the mad.
 

idumea/content/007.tex

@@ -1,8 +1,8 @@
-When at last The Woman returned home, she performed a new ritual. She performed a ritual of mourning.
+When at last The Woman returned home from her walk of hours and hours and a day, she performed a new ritual. She performed a ritual of mourning.
 
-This, you see, was the start of her final task. Her set of five tasks, of food, of physical pleasure, of entertainment, of creation, of change was not quite complete, and had within it one more step, and she felt most a connection to the spiritual in the act of mourning and hoped in that to seek change.
+This, you see, was the first pawings at her final task. Her set of five tasks, of food, of physical pleasure, of entertainment, of creation, of change was not quite complete, and had within it one more step, and she felt most a connection to the spiritual in the act of mourning and hoped in that to seek change.
 
-My friends, I think it may well have been our conversation, that of The Woman and The Oneirotect and I, that set her mind thus in motion, for was it not then that we spoke so freely of my beloved up-tree and the way it mourned over Should We Forget? Did not the pair of long lost tenth stanza lines come up as well? Death Itself and I Do Not Know? They, too, perhaps felt some of this too-full-ness that The Woman struggles with, for back and back and back and back and back and back, six decades back, they lay still in thought and, before long, before the week was up, quit. They bowed out. They dipped. Committed suicide. Quit the big one. They push now up some perhaps daisies perhaps columbines perhaps nasturtiums\label{nasturtiums} in the mind of The Dreamer who dreams us all.
+My friends, I think it may well have been our conversation, that of The Woman and The Oneirotect and I, that set her mind thus in motion, for was it not then that we spoke so freely of my beloved up-tree and the way it mourned over Should We Forget? Did not the pair of long lost tenth stanza lines come up as well? Death Itself and I Do Not Know? They, too, perhaps felt some of this too-full-ness that The Woman struggles with, for back and back and back and back and back and back, six decades back, they lay still in thought and, before long, before the week was up, quit. They bowed out. They dipped. Committed suicide. Quit the big one. They push now up some perhaps daisies perhaps dandelions perhaps columbines perhaps nasturtiums\label{nasturtiums} in the mind of The Dreamer who dreams us all.
 
 There is loss in our lives and in our hearts and in our minds.
 
@@ -26,7 +26,7 @@ The Woman pushed the door open and bowed. ``Rejoice.''
 
 ``I would like to sit by Death Itself's bed for a few minutes.''
 
-Her Cocladist, halfway through setting her book aside, froze, and a wash of skunk spiraled up along her form, only to be replaced yet again by humanity, black fur sprouting, wilting, fading only to be replaced by skin. ``Why?''
+Her Cocladist, halfway through setting her book aside, froze, and a wash of skunk spiraled up along her form, only to be replaced yet again by humanity, black fur sprouting, wilting, fading, leaving only skin. ``Why?''
 
 The Woman stood still in the doorway. ``Because I am sad, and because I miss her.''
 
@@ -38,7 +38,7 @@ Along the other wall—that wall that had been hidden to the woman—was a simpl
 
 The Woman had her own ritual of grief to perform, though, and this did not call for touching the bed.
 
-Instead, she sat down near the end of it, across the room from Her Cocladist, for both beds had at their feet matching beanbags—when you have a tail that flickers into being at moments not under your control, you are limited in your seating, you see, to the types of seats that can accommodate such caudal majesty that skunks sport—where once Her Cocladist and Should We Forget would sit at times and talk and share in kindnesses such as touch when their forms permitted.
+Instead, she sat down near the end of it, across the room from Her Cocladist, for both beds had at their feet matching beanbags—when you have a tail that flickers into being at moments not under your control, you are limited in your seating, you see, to the types of seats that can accommodate such caudal majesty that skunks sport—where once Her Cocladist and Death Itself would sit at times and talk and share in kindnesses such as touch when their forms permitted.
 
 There, The Woman remained still.
 
@@ -70,7 +70,7 @@ Perhaps she spoke to The Dreamer who dreams us all, perhaps not, but either way,
 
 \label{thedog1}
 
-The Woman sat down on the floor by The Dog. She knew he was a cladist, for cladists come in many shapes---did she not also appear as a skunk? And a panther? And now, here, she was a human!---and so hoped he might have insight into unbecoming. This, after all, was the purpose of her visit to Le Rêve, the neighborhood of the fifth stanza, that of The Poet and The Musician and My Friend, and also The Child. It was The Child who was her goal, you see. She wished to speak with those who had changed, who had pushed themselves into new molds, who had become something new, that they might no longer be what had once drove them. Stillness lay in choice---that was the thought she held onto---that is the thought that I wish I could believe; would that I could choose to be still! Would that I could choose silence and images instead of yet more words.
+The Woman sat down on the floor by The Dog some days later, a week later. She knew he was a cladist, for cladists come in many shapes---did she not also appear as a skunk? And a panther? And now, here, she was a human!---and so hoped he might have insight into unbecoming. This, after all, was the purpose of her visit to Le Rêve, the neighborhood of the fifth stanza, that of The Poet and The Musician and My Friend, and also The Child. It was The Child who was her goal, you see. She wished to speak with those who had changed, who had pushed themselves into new molds, who had become something new, that they might no longer be what had once drove them. Stillness lay in choice---that was the thought she held onto---that is the thought that I wish I could believe; would that I could choose to be still! Would that I could choose silence and images instead of yet more words.
 
 The Dog had attached himself to Au Lieu Du Rêve, to the theatre troupe and to the fifth stanza, to His Skunks, some time ago. He spent many lazy days among them, many evenings dozing by the kettlecorn stand in the theater lobby in the hopes of someone dropping their snacks, many frantic minutes carrying The Child's latest core dump to the resident systech after she yet again in a bout of play had crashed.
 
@@ -108,7 +108,7 @@ The Woman reached out to pet The Dog. It relaxed into the pressure.
 
 \emph{``Some of the pack decide they don't want the job, want to do what the tall one is afraid of. They want to never talk, never plan.''}
 
-``I want something like this, perhaps,'' The Woman said. ``I want to unbecome, to be still. Do you know how?''
+``I want something like this, perhaps,'' The Woman said. ``I want to be still, to unbecome. Do you know how?''
 
 The Dog froze in a swelling of alarm. His fears came from the same simplicity as his joys. While he was wont to let the possibility of casting off his humanity sneak up on him slowly, he still felt fear, like His Elder did, at such a blunt statement of the idea. \emph{``Don't want! Who will watch Motes?''}
 
@@ -172,7 +172,7 @@ And in the bliss of not-knowing, through unwitnessed years and decades, it slept
 
 The Woman could not tell which of them had it better, these two dogs, these two cladists, these two beings who had so distanced themself from what they had once been. Both seemed quite content with the path that had taken. Dogs! What wonders they are! What pleasures! What joys. They had both unbecome, or taken steps in that direction, in their own way, and had found what they wanted.
 
-This was close, dear readers! This was so close to what she sought. This worrying not of \emph{knowing} was so close, but the Woman realized even then that, for her, the life of an animal, even one so invested in its state as The Rabbit-Chaser, was not what she sought, not quite, not exactly. It did not go far enough. It was not \emph{still} enough. The her who was a beast would still have too much of her. The her who was a skunk or a panther was still an active entity, an agent of her own future. In the end, the she who was these things was still an actor. She needed a change more integral, more whole, more entire—not a reshaping of the body, nor even the mind, but a reshaping of the existence.
+This was close, dear readers! This was so close to what she sought. This worrying not of \emph{knowing} was so close, but the Woman realized even then that, for her, the life of an animal, even one so invested in its state as The Rabbit-Chaser, was not what she sought, not quite, not exactly. It did not go far enough. It was not \emph{still} enough. The her who was a beast would still have too much of her, too many cares and worries and too much of herself.. The her who was a skunk or a panther was still an active entity, an agent of her own future. In the end, the she who was these things was still an actor. She needed a change more integral, more whole, more entire—not a reshaping of the body, nor even the mind, but a reshaping of the existence.
 
 So, her search continued.
 

idumea/content/008.tex

@@ -22,7 +22,7 @@ Time is a story I tell myself. Sentences twine around seconds like tendrils of l
 
 But a life? What is a life, anymore? Three centuries and no sign of quitting, and a lifetime seems to have lost meaning. Perhaps someday my life will end, and I will have left behind a finite oeuvre. Perhaps I will simply decide that I have had enough and draw a line across the end of the page and, however many bookshelves of story are left behind shall be all that ever was.
 
-Not yet, though. Not this year, I suspect not this decade, and I hope not even this century.
+Not yet, though. Not this year, I suspect not this decade, and I hope not even this century.\label{keatsfears}
 
 I have joys to counter all of my sorrows. My head is, yes, in clouds stormy or peaceful, but my feet remain firmly planted on the ground. My arms are full of the love of life. My home makes room for those I see as my family. Our lawns are for picnics and our beds are for dreams.
 
@@ -74,7 +74,7 @@ The Woman nodded.
 
 ``I have, yes.''
 
-Her Friend smiled, raising her paper cup in a toast and tapping it gently to The Woman's own cup. ``Congratulations, End Of Endings. I am pleased to hear that. Is there more that you can tell me?''
+Her Friend smiled, raising her paper cup in a toast and tapping it gently to The Woman's own. ``Congratulations, End Of Endings. I am pleased to hear that. Is there more that you can tell me?''
 
 ``Of course, No Hesitation,'' The Woman said, sitting up straighter, as though by having her body more in order, her thoughts might be as well—would that this worked, my dear friends! Would that I could be so still and keep my thoughts like ducks: all in a row. Would that my emotions all faced the same direction. Ah, but The Woman continued, ``If becoming was the act of going from stillness to movement, then unbecoming might well be the act of going from movement to stillness.''
 

idumea/content/009.tex

@@ -24,7 +24,7 @@ Ah, my dear, \emph{dear} readers, you know that I am struggling, I will not apol
 
 What I have meant to tell you, what I have been trying to tell you and failing as waves of words wash over me, is that I remember what it was like to be that shape. I, \emph{too,} can look like Michelle who was Sasha did. I do not choose to do so often—I have not lived so in some decades—but I know that I still can, for I just now tried forking into such a shape. The Woman looked like that perhaps one third of the time, yes?
 
-Many of those within our clade still look like her, to some extent or another, and one of those, one who came to visit me not a week after I met with The Woman, was The Blue Fairy.
+Many of those within our clade still look like her, to some extent or another, and one of those, one who came to visit me not a month after I met with The Woman, was The Blue Fairy.
 
 The Blue Fairy did not look \emph{precisely} as Michelle who was Sasha did, of course, and very few of us do, except perhaps some of those in the tenth stanza. For, you see, the sixth stanza, the one from which The Blue Fairy originates, found itself focused keenly on feelings of motherhood. This is not, you must understand, restricted to those feelings of giving birth—though perhaps some linger in that sense—nor of having or raising children—though The Blue Fairy is called `Ma 2.0' by The Child—but it is a general sense, a broad definition that encompasses the feelings of love that dwell within us and how they apply to the whole of the world.
 
@@ -46,17 +46,17 @@ They loved each other, and then, as has been the theme throughout this winding s
 
 And so here she was, no longer just a cocladist of mine, just a woman who wandered sims and drank mochas and loved the world, but once more a systech, once more a fairy. She was once more The Blue Fairy.
 
-And so here she was, \emph{here,} Standing before my door, my second visitor in a week, bowing to me and greeting me with such kindness as I have ever seen from her, whenever we have had cause to meet—not infrequently, for she was also fond of my beloved up-tree.
+And so here she was, \emph{here,} Standing before my door, my second visitor in a month, bowing to me and greeting me with such kindness as I have ever seen from her, whenever we have had cause to meet—not infrequently, for she was also fond of my beloved up-tree.
 
 ``Tell me, Dry Grass, how you have been,'' I said once we were settled around the table in my house, that dining table which so easily expanded to fit all who would join and yet now was small and intimate.
 
-``Oh, well enough, I suppose. I think I am starting to find my way out of that phase where everything feels new about systech stuff. It was easy enough for me to jump right in at first, but so much has changed in the intervening years.''
+``Oh, well enough, I suppose. I think I am starting to find my way out of that phase where everything feels new about systech stuff. It was easy enough for me to jump right back in at first, but so much has changed in the intervening years.''
 
 ``I can imagine, yes.''
 
-``It is not all on me, at least. We are learning the ins and outs of the new tech they have given us while bringing Lagrange back up from the Century Attack. So many crashes after long-diverged forks merged cross-tree out of fun, so many instances of people accidentally messing up their new ACLs and locking themselves out of their own rooms.'' She laughed, sipped her mocha, and added, ``The world feels strange and new.''
+``It is not all on me, at least. We are all learning the ins and outs of the new tech they have given us while bringing Lagrange back up from the Century Attack. So many crashes after long-diverged forks merged cross-tree out of fun, so many instances of people accidentally messing up their new ACLs and locking themselves out of their own rooms.'' She laughed, sipped her mocha, and added, ``The world feels strange and new.''
 
-``It does, at that,'' I said, smiling. ``I do not think I am at risk of either of those, at least. I have little interest in cross-tree merging, beyond providing an instance for Ashes Denote That Fire Was.''\label{ashes}
+``It does, at that,'' I said, smiling. ``I do not think I am at risk of either of those, at least. I have little interest in cross-tree merging, beyond providing an instance for Ashes Denote That Fire Was.''
 
 ``Same, on both counts. I believe they have picked up nearly twenty Odists now. They look\ldots well, they certainly have plenty going on, yes?''
 
@@ -70,7 +70,7 @@ Eventually, she replied: ``That is actually part of why I came here, Rye.''
 
 ``I came to speak with you about End Of Endings.''
 
-I sat up straighter. My friends, you will surely understand when I say that The Woman had been on my mind much in the intervening days, in that week between when I last saw her and this lovely afternoon with The Blue Fairy. Her loveliness shined bright in my thoughts, and I still felt blessed—still \emph{feel} blessed!—by each and every one of her smiles and quiet laughs. ``Yes, I have spoken with her recently. Warmth and I both have, I mean.''
+I sat up straighter. My friends, you will surely understand when I say that The Woman had been on my mind much in the intervening days, in that month between when I last saw her and this lovely afternoon with The Blue Fairy. Her loveliness shined bright in my thoughts, and I still felt blessed—still \emph{feel} blessed!—by each and every one of her smiles and quiet laughs. ``Yes, I have spoken with her recently. Warmth and I both have, I mean.''
 
 ``Yes, she mentioned such to me. She mentioned you two, Motes, Slow Hours, Beholden, No Hesitation, Ever Dream, Rejoice, Farai—a woman with whom she has at times dated—and a few incidental friends she has made in the last month or so. I have been meeting up with each of them to get a better sense of what is happening. You are the last on my list.''
 
@@ -94,7 +94,7 @@ The Blue Fairy nodded. ``She is not interested in meditating, no.''
 
 She nodded once more. ``Right.''
 
-My friends, I will not lie, there was much frustration in me at the moment. I could feel my tail bristling out and I could feel my hackles raise and I could feel the way my ears were pinning back almost against my will. I think you may well understand, why, too, for this is what I said next: ``Okay, and she says that she has no desire to die in her, and yet she is talking about all but disappearing to the world around her, yes? That is what she is saying here! She is saying that she wants to stop being what she is and to become a tree!''
+My friends, I will not lie, there was much frustration in me at the moment. I could feel my tail bristling out and I could feel my hackles raise and I could feel the way my ears were pinning back almost against my will. I think you may well understand, why, too, for this is what I said next: ``Okay, and she says that she has no desire to die in her, and yet she is talking about all but disappearing to the world around her, yes? That is what she is saying here! She is saying that she wants to stop being what she is and to become a tree. A tree!''
 
 The Blue Fairy only smiled tiredly to me and replied, ``It is as you say.''
 
@@ -108,7 +108,7 @@ She shook her head, chuckling. ``Oh, not at all. I am quite back-and-forth on th
 
 ``I have heard of those, yes. I have visited Nanbrethil.''
 
-``Of course you have,'' she said, smirking. ``But no, she said that she had already read up on some such groups and did not think that this is what she was after. She was after specifically `unbecoming', and this, she believed, was not the same as the thing that these groups were after. She said,''They are after an experience, and I do not fault them for that, but I am after an existence. They wish to do, I wish to be.'' When I suggested that perhaps there might be others who are interested in that, she cut me off—very politely, of course!—and said that that may well be, but that she came to me specifically because of our connection.''
+``Of course you have,'' she said, smirking. ``But no, she said that she had already read up on some such groups and did not think that this is what she was after. She was after specifically `unbecoming', and this, she believed, was not the same as the thing that these groups were after. She said, ``They are after an experience, and I do not fault them for that, but I am after an existence. They wish to do, I wish to be.'' When I suggested that perhaps there might be others who are interested in that, she cut me off—very politely, of course!—and said that that may well be, but that she came to me specifically because of our connection.''
 
 ``Connection?''
 
@@ -116,11 +116,11 @@ She shook her head, chuckling. ``Oh, not at all. I am quite back-and-forth on th
 
 I sat back in my chair, holding my mug in both paws to draw from the warmth. ``Do you think, then, that she is seeking this change because of the loss from the Century Attack? That of Should We Forget?''
 
-``That is what I came to ask you about, actually. I have visited with all of these people, heard all of what they have had to tell me about End Of Endings's last few weeks, and now I want to hear how you would write the end of this story, and how you imagine she would justify it.''
+``That is what I came to ask you about. I have visited with all of these people, heard all of what they have had to tell me about End Of Endings's last few weeks, and now I want to hear how you would write the end of this story, and how you imagine she would justify it. How \emph{we} might justify it''
 
-Now \emph{this} was a thought, dear readers. This was a thought that danced up along my nape and left a tingle in my scalp, it is a thought that danced down along my arms and gave an inch in my paws that invited the picking up of a pen. It is a thought that has circled around my head like a halo, lighting all that I see, for some years now, for nearly six years! I thought to write this story then, and I thought to write this story after, and I thought to write this story in the intervening years, but something was not quite right, not quite right, not quite right about the time or about myself or about the world around me, and so I did not. I did not write the story perhaps because I was still living in that haste to experience all that I could before our world risked once more coiling around and eating some more billions of us and our lives were turned off like a simple light switch. I did not write the story because I was writing only the small things, that I might spend the rest of my time loving those around me, hugging my beloved up-tree, eating picnics out on the lawn with my stanza, simply \emph{living.} Ah, I am trying to--
+Now \emph{this} was a thought, dear readers. This was a thought that danced up along my nape and left a tingle in my scalp, it is a thought that danced down along my arms and gave an inch in my paws that invited the picking up of a pen. It is a thought that has circled around my head like a halo, lighting all that I see, for some years now, for nearly six years! I thought to write this story then, and I thought to write this story after, and I thought to write this story in the intervening years, but something was not quite right, not quite right, not quite right about the time or about myself or about the world around me, and so I did not. I did not write the story perhaps because I was still living in that haste to experience all that I could before our world risked once more coiling around and eating some billions more of us and our lives were turned off like a simple light switch. I did not write the story because I was writing only the small things, that I might spend the rest of my time loving those around me, hugging my beloved up-tree, eating picnics out on the lawn with my stanza, simply \emph{living.} Ah, I am trying to--
 
-Some of you, perhaps some of my newer uploads, or my littler readers, or maybe some of those who have lived for centuries, might wonder at this. They might wonder: ``Rye, it seems to me like The Woman is asking to be absolved of all those except the barest responsibilities of living.'' They might wonder: ``Rye, it seems to me like The Woman is abdicating on life in a way that she can deny is suicide.'' Perhaps they might wonder: ``Rye, The Woman has chosen for herself a next step, a beautiful exploration.'' And all of them might wonder: ``Rye, why is it that you are being asked this in particular? Why is Dry Grass not asking for your opinion on whether The Woman should or should not do this thing?''
+Some of you, perhaps some of my newer uploads, or my littler readers who sit cross-legged on carpet squares, or maybe some of those who have lived for centuries, might wonder at this. They might wonder: ``Rye, it seems to me like The Woman is asking to be absolved of all those except the barest responsibilities of living.'' They might wonder: ``Rye, it seems to me like The Woman is abdicating on life in a way that she can deny is suicide.'' Perhaps they might wonder: ``Rye, The Woman has chosen for herself a next step, a beautiful exploration.'' And all of them might wonder: ``Rye, why is it that you are being asked this in particular? Why is The Blue Fairy not asking for your opinion on whether The Woman should or should not do this thing?''
 
 And I think that, to these musings, I might reply: ``My friends, my lovely friends, a beautiful consequence of cladistics is that this is simply not my role. Yes, I had feelings on the thought of The Woman existing within perpetual stillness—of course I did! How then would I be blessed once more by her smile?—and I did indeed tell those to The Blue Fairy, as you shall see, but that is the easy part. The hard part and the valuable thing that I might have to offer is that aspect that I have focused my life around, which is the telling of stories. There are others who might offer predictions for the future, those such as The Poet who live their life in prophecies, but it is my life to write the stories of the now, of the present, of the lives we are living and breathing pinned at the forefront of time's inevitable arrow. The Blue Fairy came to me with all of this research that I might have done myself when it comes to writing a story and asked me to build up a sense of The Woman's life that we may better understand.''
 
@@ -140,7 +140,7 @@ She frowned, lingering in silence, and then nodded. ``And I worry that that, too
 
 The Blue Fairy groaned and covered her face in her hands. ``Fuck. Rye, why is this so hard? Why did she ask me?''
 
-``Because you are a good person. She respects you, yes? And you are a cocladist. You \emph{are} her, in a way,'' I said, squeezing her upper arm kindly. ``She is looking to someone she respects and someone she \emph{is} to either give her blessings by helping, or to talk her out of it. The decision is not whether or not she should, but whether or not we should. It is not a judgment on her, if it is a judgment at all, but it is a judgment on us.''
+``Because you are a good person. She respects you, yes? And you are a cocladist. You \emph{are} her, in a way,'' I said, squeezing her upper arm kindly. ``She is looking to someone she respects and someone she \emph{is} to either give her blessing by helping, or to talk her out of it. The decision is not whether or not \emph{she} should, but whether or not \emph{we} should. It is not a judgment on her, if it is a judgment at all, but it is a judgment on us.''
 
 I, dear readers, dear, \emph{dear} friends, I am trying to believe this. I am trying to live into this. I am trying to feel that I have been judged for making that decision, the decision that I did, the decision to let go—for I am sure that you see now just where this is going; have I not written so much in the past tense?—and been judged worthy. I hope that, if God exists, that They will smile and brush my mane out of my eyes and rest Their paw—for am I not made in Their image? Am I not \emph{b'tzelem Elohim?}—and say to me, ``It is okay, Rye. To let go is difficult, but it is okay. Sometimes one must let go.''
 
@@ -148,7 +148,7 @@ But here is the point where my mind was made up, and I will admit to being somew
 
 ``I do not think we would ever know, is all. You are right in that she has said that this is not a death, but we would never know. The reason she came to me is not necessarily to help her turn into a tree—though I will also help her with that—but to modify her record in the perisystem clade listing to be grayed out.''
 
-I sat up straighter, hearing this! How intriguing! ``As in when one has locked down their visibility?''
+I sat up straighter, hearing this. How intriguing! ``As in when one has locked down their visibility?''
 
 ``Yes. She requested an exception that, whether or not she quits, her entry remain in some in-between state so that we will never know.''
 
@@ -156,7 +156,7 @@ I sat up straighter, hearing this! How intriguing! ``As in when one has locked d
 
 She snorted, raising her face from her hands. ``She said that each of us will have to make up our own reason. It was all very Odist.''
 
-``It really is,'' I said, chuckling. Readers, it is so much easier to write like this, to tell of concrete things. I am trying not to rush, as I do not have much time left, I think but--- ah, I am interrupting myself. I chuckled and said, ``It really is. Did you mention this to the others?''
+``It really is,'' I said, chuckling. Readers, it is so much easier to write like this, to tell of concrete things. I am trying not to rush, as I do not have much time left, I think but-- ah, I am interrupting myself. I chuckled and said, ``It really is. Did you mention this to the others?''
 
 ``I did. Reactions were mixed. Farai cried quite hard. No Hesitation was left in a whirlwind of doubts. Slow Hours agreed immediately that we grant her this change.''
 
@@ -174,7 +174,7 @@ I struggled for a minute, and it was not for want of words, for I knew the words
 
 Her shoulders slumped, and she looked at me with tired eyes, searching eyes. ``What is your reason for her request of an exception, then?''
 
-``She is keeping her last bit of agency for herself,'' I said—slowly, for I was not so rehearsed with these words, and I have a habit of rehearsing much of what I say. ``She is saying,''This final decision is mine. You may decide whether or not to help me, but if you do, I will make the final decision.'' She tells the end of her story alone, and we will have to tell ours for ourselves.''
+``She is keeping her last bit of agency for herself,'' I said—slowly, for I was not so rehearsed with these words, and I have a habit of rehearsing much of what I say. ``She is saying, ``This final decision is mine. You may decide whether or not to help me, but if you do, I will make the final decision.'' She tells the end of her story alone, and we will have to tell ours for ourselves.''
 
 We spent some minutes then in silence—a comfortable silence, friends; I did not feel like we were waiting for the other to speak—simply drinking our mochas and looking out the window together.
 
@@ -182,7 +182,7 @@ At last, The Blue Fairy smiled to me. ``Alright. I will do as she has asked. It
 
 \secdiv
 
-I am struggling and I am crying and I am pacing around my empty house and I am trembling and I am struggling and I am crying and my paws are bleeding from where my claws have pierced my pads and I am having a hard time holding myself down to one set of thoughts to one set of words to one language to the present moment to the living world and I am looking up and within and without and around and hunting for our superlative friend who is The Dreamer who dreams us all and I am doing my best not to step away to that sim to that coffeeshop to that tree where I may throw myself at its roots and wrap my arms around its trunk and press my cheek against its coarse bark and weep and weep and weep and weep and weep and weep and weep and weep and weep and weep and weep and weep and weep and weep and weep and--
+I am struggling and I am crying and I am pacing around my empty house and I am trembling and I am struggling and I am crying and my paws are bleeding from where my claws have pierced my pads and I am having a hard time holding myself down to one set of thoughts to one set of words to one language to the present moment to the living world and I am looking up and within and without and around and hunting for our superlative friend who is The Dreamer who dreams us all and I am struggling and I am crying and I am doing my best not to step away to that sim to that coffeeshop to that tree where I may throw myself at its roots and wrap my arms around its trunk and press my cheek against its coarse bark and weep and weep and weep and weep and weep and weep and weep and weep and weep and weep and weep and weep and weep and weep and weep and--
 
 My friends, my beautiful beloved readers, I am lost. I am all but lost. I have enough in me to tell you of what happened, but only just, and then I will no longer be able to continue, for that was the last conversation we had. That is the last concrete thing that I have to write. There are no other words that I can tell you except for these:
 
@@ -228,25 +228,25 @@ We may never more be blessed.
 
 \emph{Baruch atah Adonai Eloneinu melech ha'olam dayan ha'emet} we may never more be blessed.
 
-I may never more melt beneath her smile. What will become of me?
+I may never more melt beneath her smile, may never again cry before her. What will become of me?
 
 The Child may never more play with her, wandering around the streets with lines of chalk following their feet, making little bets with themselves. What will become of her?
 
-Her Cocladist will never wonder whether their is aught else in life but suffering while The Woman sits nearby. What will become of her?
+Her Cocladist will never wonder whether there is aught else in life but suffering while The Woman sits nearby. What will become of her?
 
-The Oneirotect may never more share stories of Should We Forget. What will become of em?
+The Oneirotect may never more share stories of Should We Forget, nor bring her small treats, small gifts. What will become of it?
 
 Where before The Woman and Her Lover, as the poet says,\label{paz3} shared their oranges and limes, where they gave their kisses, where they lay on the grass and beach, now the woman lays underground and they share nothing, giving silence for silence. What will become of her?
 
 What of Her Friend? What of that beautiful soul? What of em? What of the one who goes now to the coffee shop every day and drinks her mocha by the base of The Tree, eir tail curled over eir paws, and speaks aloud to one who is lost to em? What will become of em?
 
-The Poet! The Musician! The aesthetician and that kindly restaurateur who petted her head while she sobbed at the remembered pain of spice and the Dreamer above! What will become of them?
+The Poet! The Musician! The aesthetician and that kindly restaurateur who petted her head while she sobbed at the remembered pain of spice and the Dreamer above! What will become of \emph{all} of them?
 
 And all of this makes me wonder and makes me tremble.
 
 It makes me tremble and it makes my fur stand on end and my paws shake and my pen skitter anxiously across the page like those leaves that danced before the feet of The Woman I told you about so, so long ago, perhaps like those leaves that skitter within the city, that unreal city, that city full of dreams, where the souls of the lost in broad daylight cling to passers-by.\label{baudelaire}
 
-Oh! And oh! The wonder of it all! She, then, like\label{graves} so many leaves and the white petals of flowers and the dry brown pods of seeds fell secretly! She fell and fell and fell and we fell and fell and fell and fell and fell until falling was all we knew and within that fall we found some new kernel of truth but how hot that kernel was! It burned within our palm as we held it to our chest and for each of us it burned so, so hot and so, so differently that there she was, too much herself and here I am, too much myself, and the words come so fast and so thick that I am blinded! Ink in my eyes, scrabbling for any known thing! I press upon this and that with shaking fingertips to try and find something that is not yet more words, but that is all there is, because this is it, my friends, the kernel of truth that we found. The truth we now know is that we are falling still! That unfalling ones are trapped within that last falling!\label{threadgall} We fell into overflow and never really ever came back. We may slow down, we may catch a branch of The Tree and be able to hold there for a little while, panting, struggling to catch our breath, until fire burns through our shoulders and we cannot hold any longer and we are forced to let go once more and fall and fall and fall just like I am falling and falling and falling and falling and falling and--
+Oh! And oh! The wonder of it all! She, then, like\label{graves} so many leaves and the white petals of flowers and the dry brown pods of seeds fell secretly! She fell and fell and fell and we fell and fell and fell and fell and fell until falling was all we knew and within that fall we found some new kernel of truth but how hot that kernel was! It burned within our palm as we held it to our chest and for each of us it burned so, so hot and so, so differently that there she was, too much herself and here I am, too much myself, and the words come so fast and so thick that I am blinded! Ink in my eyes! Scrabbling for any known thing! I press upon this and that with shaking fingertips to try and find something that is not yet more words, but that is all there is, because this is it, my friends, the kernel of truth that we found. The truth we now know is that we are falling still! That unfalling ones are trapped within that last falling!\label{threadgall} We fell into overflow and never really ever came back. We may slow down, we may catch a branch of The Tree and be able to hold there for a little while, panting, struggling to catch our breath, until fire burns through our shoulders and we cannot hold any longer and we are forced to let go once more and fall and fall and fall just like I am falling and falling and falling and falling and falling and--
 
 And The Woman? This is what makes me wonder and makes me tremble: what of her? Is she alive still? Or did she quit and are we left not with The Tree that is her but simply a tree? Simply that which drinks thirstily from this dream of a ground. Is that her or is it a dream of dumb matter? If she is still there, if she is still alive, if she is still The Tree, then is she still at last? Is she merely herself at last? Has she landed at last upon the ground and sat up, dazed, and looked about her new life and said, ``Oh! Oh, I do believe this is some plentiful enough for me''?\label{enough}
 
@@ -264,6 +264,6 @@ When, as now, I am blinded by ink that flows down my cheeks and stains my fur an
 
 What will become of me?
 
-Friends, I do not know, I do not know. Friends, all I can do is lock the door and make sure my mug of mocha will not empty and pick up my pen and put it to the paper and brush my cheek fondly against my graphomania's wrist and listen to its cloying words and simply dance. Do I need help? Should I seek out No Hesitation? Should I ask My Friend? Should I ask you, gentle readers? What will happen if I do? What will happen if I do not? What will become of me?
+Friends, I do not know, I do not know. Most beloved, all I can do is lock the door and make sure my mug of mocha will not empty and pick up my pen and put it to the paper and brush my cheek fondly against my graphomania's wrist and listen to its cloying words and simply dance. Do I need help? Should I seek out No Hesitation? Should I ask My Friend? Should I ask you, gentle readers? What will happen if I do? What will happen if I do not? What will become of me?
 
 I am full of wonder and I am full of terror and I am trembling and I am asking myself you The Woman Her Friend My Friend my graphomania my pen my paper my dear, \emph{dear} readers: what will become of me, and am I born to die? And am I born to die? And am I born to die? What will become of me? And am I born to die? What will become of me? What will become of me? What will become of me? What will become of me? And am I born to die? And am I born to die? What will become of me?

idumea/content/afterword.tex

@@ -6,11 +6,11 @@
 
 \input{content/notes}
 
-% Make sure this is verso
+%% Make sure this is verso. Comment/uncomment as needed.
-\newpage
+%\newpage
-\null
+%\null
-\thispagestyle{empty}
+%\thispagestyle{empty}
-\newpage
+%\newpage
 \includepdf[fitpaper=true]{hymn.pdf}
 
 \chapter*{Appendix II — Idumea}
@@ -39,7 +39,7 @@ The hymn is reproduced here for reference. Despite being in short meter, the typ
 \chapter*{Acknowledgments}
 Thanks is due first of all to Jacob Geller, who knows me not, for he created a video on the story of Pinocchio that touched me so deeply that I began this project in the first place. Thanks also to Tomash and Yule, who contributed so much to this story; it would not be what it is without them. To Isiat, adoration for his boundless support. To barnaby on the Apocrypals Discord for help with Sacred Harp hymns. To Mae and Taija and Andréa C. Mason for reminding me that my work is indeed read. Finally, I will forever sing the praises of my polycule and those within for their support and love, and for the privilege of loving them in turn.
 
-\newpage
+\cleardoublepage
 \null
 \vfill
 \noindent\emph{Idumea} was funded by a Kickstarter campaign. These are those who brought it to fruition:

idumea/content/notes.tex

@@ -42,7 +42,7 @@ I spoke of this with writer friends, and one of them, the ever delightful Seras
 
 Now here I am, once more coming down from my overflow, once more feeling somewhat grounded, the world around once more made of things which are not yet more words, and I have to contend with the reality that this remains, for the most part, a funny little note, and that this story no longer quite reads as that real-boy-to-inanimate-tree pipeline, tired trope that I am sure it is.
 
-Instead, I must hope that The Woman has indeed escaped such a cycle, and I must hope that those along her way were in some roundabout way the bodhisattvas in her life.
+Instead, I must hope that The Woman has indeed escaped such a cycle, and I must hope that those along her way were in some roundabout way akin to the bodhisattvas in her life.
 \pagebreak
 
 \paragraph{Page \pageref{rilke-circles}}
@@ -152,6 +152,23 @@ Saying nothing, nor kissing\\
 exchanging silence for silence.
 \end{verse}
 
+\paragraph{Page \pageref{kassad}}
+[\ldots] \emph{a sutle twisting, a stirring, a clockwise motion} [\ldots]
+
+\vspace{1em}
+
+\noindent Cf. Simmons:
+
+\begin{quote}
+They lay next to each other. The dead man's armor was cold against Kassad's left arm, her thigh warm against his right leg. The sunlight was a benediction. Hidden colors rose to the surface of things. Kassad turned his head and gazed at her as she rested her head on his shoulder. Her cheeks glowed with flush and autumn light and her hair lay like copper threads along the flesh of his arm. She curved her leg over his thigh and Kassad felt the clockwise stirring of renewed passion. The sun was warm on his face. He closed his eyes.
+\end{quote}
+
+\noindent The tone, here, is quite different, but it is notable that `clockwise' would so catch my attention to lodge itself in my mind, when it comes to the topic of sexuality. Perhaps arousal is an unwinding, then, and orgasm the \emph{ding!} when the timer hits zero, and that is why we say `pent up'.
+
+Perhaps it is simply the nerves I feel about so blatantly describing a sexual act within a supposed fairy tale that leads to a twisting in my own stomach.
+
+I do not know, my friends.
+
 \paragraph{Page \pageref{timo}}
 [\ldots] \emph{there was a spot between joy and fear, a place of too much meaning} [\ldots]
 
@@ -178,13 +195,73 @@ Between joy and fear\\
 Is a place of too much meaning.\\
 Next to understanding, outside wisdom,\\
 It nonetheless expands.\\
-I’m so small beside it\\
+I am so small beside it\\
 and it is too big.\\
 Incomprehensible,\\
 Incontestible,\\
 Unmoving and always changing.
 \end{verse}
 
+\paragraph{Page \pageref{blue-orange}}
+
+[\ldots] \emph{the orange and blue of love and anxiety} [\ldots]
+
+\vspace{1em}
+
+\noindent When one writes of that which is alien in the context of morality, one might say that it escapes even the concepts of black, white, and gray, and instead lies on the axis of blue and orange. Blue-orange morality is that which is so far removed from our on conceptions of good and evil that one whose morals fall along such a spectrum may escape definition of `good' or `evil' at all, and so too do they evade `order' and `chaos'.
+
+Here, then, may well be your narrator's own complex engagement with romance and sensuality and sexuality peeking through. Here, then, may be a glimpse into the mind of someone who just does not quite get it. It is lovely. I know this. I \emph{know} this, and yet anticipation and anxiety are not black and white to me, they are blue and orange.
+
+The writer, as ever, is a character in their own works, no matter the role they actually play.
+
+\paragraph{Page \pageref{echo}}
+
+[...] \emph{and she knew that Her Lover would be by her side for some time to come if she let her—and she would let her—and that, too, was a joy.}
+
+\noindent Cf. Echo:
+
+\begin{verse}
+My wileling is not the sort of woman you spend a diamond on —\\
+And I don't just mean to allude to her anti-capitalist streak —\\
+No, she is the sort you paint in gold and scarlet,\\
+The only colors befitting a minx such as she,\\
+A cat-eyed woman, the sort who speaks in tongues;\\
+That which men with pitchforks called the Devil's tongue\\
+As she burned at the stake.
+
+Blood and electrum for my wileling;\\
+Only the best for her.\\
+She is to me a cherished thing,\\
+A queen to a throne, with the wit to reign regent.\\
+So, to say that she is mine is indeed a crime.\\
+But if she has asked me to so infringe —\\
+And she has asked me to so infringe —\\
+Then mine she shall be\\
+For she has me woven around her finger\\
+As she is all the way around mine.
+\end{verse}
+
+\paragraph{Page \pageref{ashes}}
+[\ldots] \emph{and I do not believe she merged cross-tree with anyone except perhaps Ashes Denote That Fire Was, who is building in themself a gestalt of the clade as best they can.}
+
+\vspace{1em}
+
+\noindent From Emily Dickinson:
+
+\begin{verse}
+Ashes denote that Fire was —\\
+Revere the Grayest Pile\\
+For the Departed Creature’s sake\\
+That hovered there awhile —
+
+Fire exists the first in light\\
+And then consolidates\\
+Only the Chemist can disclose\\
+Into what Carbonates.
+\end{verse}
+
+\noindent We have always borne an obsession with Emily Dickinson. For years and years, and years and years and years she has lived within us, a remnant of some stage play we performed with our superlative friend, centuries back now.
+
 \paragraph{Page \pageref{dwale}}
 \emph{It was a land of long, rolling hills and yet longer flat basins that always drank most thirstily from the seasonal storms that did their best to thrash the Earth below.}
 
@@ -207,16 +284,38 @@ And I am raw, far too raw, to tell it.
 I have written extensively on these hyper-black shapes that The Child paints and more about her besides in \emph{Motes Played}. A little book for little skunks, yes? For she deserves her story told—and just so! Just like this! A tale written in a style befitting her—as much as does The Woman.
 \pagebreak
 
+\paragraph{Page \pageref{keatsheight}}
+\emph{Miss Michelle Hadje, five foot four.}
+
+\vspace{1em}
+
+Cf. John Keats:
+
+\begin{quote}
+I do think better of womankind than to suppose they care whether Mister John Keats five feet high likes them or not.
+\end{quote}
+
+\paragraph{Page \pageref{pronouns}}
+On The Oneirotect's pronouns
+
+\vspace{1em}
+
+\noindent The Oneirotect uses for itself several pronouns—though the set you see here in this text are `she', `they', `ey', and `it'—which serves as a reflection both of its critter nature and the fluidity of eir engagement with gender– no, with the slipperiness of identity as a whole. This is the role of language with identity: to be a poor reflection through some imperfect mirror, a version of the self seen through some glass, darkly.
+
+You will note the same is also true of The Dog, who, yes, is prone to a critter nature, but who also sometimes views himself as `he' and sometimes itself as `it'. For better or worse the identity of animals, of `low beasts', is entwined with that of \emph{things,} and for some, that is a joy.
+
 \paragraph{Page \pageref{rakoff}}
 \emph{It is} enjoyable, \emph{and often it is} loved, \emph{but it is not really} beloved.
 
+\vspace{1em}
+
 Cf. David Rakoff:
 
 \begin{quote}
 Should you happen to be possessed of a certain verbal acuity coupled with a relentless, hair-trigger humor and surface cheer spackling over a chronic melancholia and loneliness—a grotesquely caricatured version of your deepest self, which you trot out at the slightest provocation to endearing and glib comic effect, thus rendering you the kind of fellow who is beloved by all yet loved by none, all of it to distract, however fleetingly, from the cold and dead-faced truth that with each passing year you face the unavoidable certainty of a solitary future in which you will perish one day while vainly attempting the Heimlich maneuver on yourself over the back of a kitchen chair—then this confirmation that you have triumphed again and managed to gull yet another mark, except this time it was the one person you'd hoped might be immune to your ever-creakier, puddle-shallow, sideshow-barker variation on adorable, even though you'd been launching this campaign weekly with a single-minded concentration from day one—well, it conjures up feelings that are best described as mixed, to say the least.
 \end{quote}
 
-The distinction between a thing that is *loved* and a thing that is *beloved* is a type of subtlety that we seem to enjoy dwelling within rather a lot. The Instance Artist has spoken of an anxiety that it might be the type of person who is "beloved by all yet loved by none," given how difficult it felt for it to let anyone get truly close to it. The Oneirotect describes food the other way around, however: ey fears that its food may be merely loved, rather than so much more broadly beloved.
+The distinction between a thing that is \emph{loved} and a thing that is \emph{beloved} is a type of subtlety that we seem to enjoy dwelling within rather a lot. The Instance Artist has spoken of an anxiety that it might be the type of person who is ``beloved by all yet loved by none,'' given how difficult it felt for it to let anyone get truly close to it. The Oneirotect describes food the other way around, however: ey fears that its food may be merely loved, rather than so much more broadly beloved.
 
 One must never ask an author their desires on where their work ought lie on the loved-beloved scale.
 
@@ -234,7 +333,7 @@ They have their exits and their entrances [\ldots]
 \end{verse}
 
 \paragraph{Page \pageref{1cor13}}
-[\ldots] \emph{through a glass darkly.}
+[\ldots] \emph{through a glass, darkly.}
 
 \vspace{1em}
 
@@ -283,7 +382,7 @@ We must delight in each other; make others' conditions our own; rejoice together
 All the parts of this body being thus united are made so contiguous in a special relation as they must needs partake of each other's strength and infirmity, joy and sorrow, weal and woe.\label{wealwoeref} (1 Cor. 12:26) If one member suffers, all suffer with it; if one be in honor, all rejoice with it.
 \end{quote}
 
-\noindent I have little care for sermons written by 17\textsuperscript{th} century imperialist Christian politicians but for these occasional little quips. It is, perhaps, a thing belonging more to sermons than to the time or the people. Here, we see in Winthrop's words an idea that has wrapped around itself within my mind and formed itself into a new take on clades and family and life sys-side as a whole, these last eight years.
+\noindent I have little care for sermons written by 17\textsuperscript{th} century imperialist Christian politicians but for these occasional little quips. It is, perhaps, a thing belonging more to sermons than it is to the time or the people. Here, we see in Winthrop's words an idea that has wrapped around itself within my mind and formed itself into a new take on clades and family and life sys-side as a whole, these last eight years.
 
 We are one body, the Ode clade. We are one body and we each of us Odists are members thereof. We do indeed rejoice together, mourn together, labor and suffer together, do we not? 
 
@@ -294,6 +393,7 @@ And yet, we are still one body. We are still all of us Michelle Hadje who was Sa
 Imagine such on the scale of the System, though! All of us members of one body! 2.3 trillion of us live here, and we are all beholden to the same piece of hardware, the same Dreamer dreaming us all in all of our love and all of our stupid, petty little squabbles that make us who we are–
 
 I have gotten carried away. The Sightwright suffered as I do, as The Oneirotect does, and perhaps even as The Woman did, and so we all suffered with them, and the fallout of their loss is with us still.
+\pagebreak
 
 \paragraph{Page \pageref{artandfear}}
 \emph{With art comes fear.}
@@ -323,6 +423,7 @@ Just like me,\\
 they long to be\\
 close to you
 \end{verse}
+\pagebreak
 
 \paragraph{Page \pageref{sweet-prospect}}
 [\ldots] \emph{...that sweet field arrayed in living green} [\ldots]
@@ -362,6 +463,81 @@ Without contraries is no progression. Attraction and repulsion, reason and energ
 From these contraries spring what the religious call Good and Evil. Good is the passive that obeys reason; Evil is the active springing from Energy.
 \end{quote}
 
+\paragraph{Page \pageref{to-}}
+
+\vspace{1em}
+
+[\ldots] \emph{some scene, some dream within a dream within a dream} [\ldots]
+
+\noindent Cf. Slow Hours:
+
+\begin{verse}
+\textbf{To — in the days after her death}
+
+A dream within a dream within a dream\\
+and fell visions sidling up too close\\
+both woo me. Sweet caramel and soft cream\\
+sit cloying on their tongues, and I, Atropos\\
+to such dreams as these, find shears on golden thread.
+
+I would not cut, nor even could, had I but wished\\
+to sever this golden thread — and every thread\\
+is golden — and end a friend and send to mist\\
+and sorrow ones so dear. Dead! Dead! She is dead\\
+and gone, for her own shears were sharper still.
+
+And so she cut, and so they watched, and so I watched\\
+such love as this cease. I yearn to say that she returned\\
+to me, became a part of me, but a tally notched\\
+among the lost was all that stayed when life was spurned\\
+by the call of death — supposedly ended.
+
+So, she is gone and now our lives are darker for it,\\
+and now this world is where the shadows lie,\\
+and all the light that still remains is forfeit,\\
+and so much green still stabs towards the sky,\\
+and yellowed teeth of lions still snap at the air.
+\end{verse}
+
+\paragraph{Page \pageref{stop-for-death}}
+\emph{She passed, perhaps, the setting sun}
+
+\vspace{1em}
+
+\noindent Cf. Emily Dickinson:
+
+\begin{verse}
+Because I could not stop for Death —\\
+He kindly stopped for me —\\
+The Carriage held but just Ourselves —\\
+And Immortality.
+
+We slowly drove — He knew no haste\\
+And I had put away\\
+My labor and my leisure too,\\
+For His Civility —
+
+We passed the School, where Children strove\\
+At Recess — in the Ring —\\
+We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain —\\
+We passed the Setting Sun —
+
+Or rather — He passed Us —\\
+The Dews drew quivering and Chill —\\
+For only Gossamer, my Gown —\\
+My Tippet — only Tulle —
+
+We paused before a House that seemed\\
+A Swelling of the Ground —\\
+The Roof was scarcely visible —\\
+The Cornice — in the Ground —
+
+Since then — 'tis Centuries — and yet\\
+Feels shorter than the Day\\
+I first surmised the Horses' Heads\\
+Were toward Eternity —
+\end{verse}
+
 \paragraph{Page \pageref{tree-writing}}
 [\ldots] \emph{that has been my dream.}
 
@@ -369,8 +545,9 @@ From these contraries spring what the religious call Good and Evil. Good is the
 
 \noindent I have dreamed of turning into a tree for years and years and years and years and years, now.
 
-For instance, I have written here that Slow Hours set this dream into verse—on my request—and this is true, for here is a segment from a longer work:
+For instance, I have written here I have set this dream into verse and this is true, for here is a segment from a longer work:
 
+\vspace{-1em}
 \begin{verse}
 We'd long since stopped, there by the pond,\\
 and your smile was, yes, sad, but still fond\\
@@ -421,7 +598,8 @@ I thought about you, your life, your emotional range,\\
 your gentle apotheosis.
 \end{verse}
 
-\noindent I have also written here that I put this dream into prose, and this is also true, for her is a segment from a short story:
+\noindent I have also written here that I put this dream into prose, and this is also true, for here is a segment from a short story:
+\pagebreak
 
 \begin{quote}
 And finally, the mirroring was broken as the \emph{her} that was not her slid \emph{her} fingers up over her wrist and gently guided her hand down toward the soil, loamy and damp, and she knew then that she must spread her fingers and dig them down into the earth, there by the stairs which were a finger pointing at God such that she was in turn pointing at…at what? At the owner of that hand? At the owner of that finger?
@@ -442,7 +620,33 @@ And she felt growth accelerate as, bound now to the earth, her bones became wood
 And yet! And yet, when writing the final chapter, even through the heat of the moment and the blood rushing in my ears, I began to feel within a flush of embarrassment. How indulgent it is to share this again! How indulgent, my friends, to let the dream take me again that it might shape my words! Even as I wrote, even as I cried, sitting at my desk (or trying to!), sobbing in front of my words, I struggled with feeling like this was somehow \emph{too} indulgent.
 
 I strive still to stifle that puritanical worrywart within, even so many years on.
-\pagebreak
+
+\paragraph{Page \pageref{florilegium}}
+[\ldots] \emph{and so we live within a fractally cyclical tangle of time}
+
+\noindent Another perpetual theme that holds me in its claws. I wrote in an essay:
+
+\begin{quote}
+A year spirals up.
+
+A day, a week, a month, they all spiral, for any one Sunday is like the previous and the next shall be much the same, but the you who experiences the differing Sundays is different. It is a spiral, proceeding steadfastly onward. A day is a spiral, with each morning much the same as the one before and the one after. A month, following the cycle of the moon.
+
+But a year, in particular, spirals up. It carries embedded within it a certain combination of pattern, count, and duration that delineates our lives better than any other cyclical unit of time. Yes, a day is divided into night, day, and those liminal dusks and dawns, but there are so many of them. There are so many days in a life, and there are so many in a year that to see the spiral within them does not come as easily.
+
+Our years are delineated by the seasons, though, and the count of them is so few, and the duration long enough that we can run up against that first scent of snow late in the autumn and immediately be kicked down one level of the spiral in our memories. What were we doing the last time we smelled that non-scent? What about the time before?
+
+Or perhaps one thinks across the spiral. One, stuck in Winter, thinks back to Summer — ah, such warmth! — and tries to remember what it was one was doing then. ``Only silhouettes show / in the billowing snow,'' Dwale writes. ``Remembering months, now / gone when new blooms would grow.''
+\end{quote}
+
+And I wrote in a story:
+
+\begin{quote}
+Lyut lives his life in prayer and devotion. It is a life that is lived ascending in a steady spiral of years, for time moves upward and yet is echoed below by the change of days, the change of weeks, the change of seasons. This year, this day, this soft spring is an echo of last soft spring beneath it. It is antipodal to the autumn that will come
+
+Cycles within cycles, spirals within spirals. This morning, too, is an echo of the day beneath it, behind it, in the past. His days are defined by the cycle of incense, prayer, fishing, foraging, meditating. He knows that it is day when he wakes when he feels the warmth from the sun. He knows when it is night when he feels the warmth fade. He knows when it is morning because he hears the birds sing. He knows that it is night when the birdsong of the day settles into the chorus of insects.
+\end{quote}
+
+And on citing these, I am realizing just how much I am built up of obsessions, of rituals and ideas that cleave and cling and stick and meld.
 
 \paragraph{Page \pageref{nasturtiums}}
 [\ldots] \emph{perhaps columbines perhaps nasturtiums} [\ldots]
@@ -452,6 +656,7 @@ I strive still to stifle that puritanical worrywart within, even so many years o
 \noindent The Musician shared with me a letter and My Friend several journal entries, but, ah–! If I share them here, I will fall once more to crying. You may find them in their entirety in \emph{Marsh}, a work written by a braver me.
 
 I will say, however, that that letter surrounded nasturtiums and was written the night Muse quit, and those diary entries were written by My Friend, a recounting of Beckoning's memories, to comfort The Musician in her grief.
+\pagebreak
 
 \paragraph{Page \pageref{psalm13}}
 (quoted directly)
@@ -479,7 +684,6 @@ Regard, answer me, \emph{HaShem}, my God.\\
 \begin{quote}
 And I set my heart to know wisdom and to know revelry and folly, for this, too, is a herding of the wind.
 \end{quote}
-\pagebreak
 
 \noindent From Qohelet 2:22:
 
@@ -518,7 +722,6 @@ kiedy zniknie świadomość
 
 \secdiv
 
-\pagebreak
 Simply let mankind\\
 extinguish itself\\
 And then innocent sunrises will illuminate\\
@@ -560,6 +763,7 @@ will feel the expanded air in more spirited flight.
 \noindent And yet I had also in mind the cadence of Nabokov: ``Give me now your full attention.'' A plea that one be understood.
 
 I am no poet, but I will not deny the utility in verse when it comes to scratching the itch of words:
+\pagebreak
 
 \begin{verse}
 Give me now your full attention.\\
@@ -584,26 +788,30 @@ Against the dark, a tall white fountain played.
 
 \noindent The words of John Winthrop (page \pageref{wealwoeref}) come once more to mind.
 
-\paragraph{Page \pageref{ashes}}
+\paragraph{Page \pageref{keatsfears}}
-[\ldots] \emph{beyond providing an instance for Ashes Denote That Fire Was.}
+\emph{Not yet, though. Not this year, I suspect not this decade, and I hope not even this century.}
 
 \vspace{1em}
 
-\noindent From Emily Dickinson:
+\noindent I speak, of course, of functional immortality and the balm it provides against the fears artists of old faced. Keats has it:
 
 \begin{verse}
-Ashes denote that Fire was —\\
+When I have fears that I may cease to be\\
-Revere the Grayest Pile\\
+\vin Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,\\
-For the Departed Creature’s sake\\
+Before high-piled books, in charact'ry,\\
-That hovered there awhile —
+\vin Hold like rich garners the full-ripen'd grain;\\
-
+When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face,\\
-Fire exists the first in light\\
+\vin Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,\\
-And then consolidates\\
+And think that I may never live to trace\\
-Only the Chemist can disclose\\
+\vin Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;\\
-Into what Carbonates.
+And when I feel, fair creature of an hour!\\
+\vin That I shall never look upon thee more,\\
+Never have relish in the faery power\\
+\vin Of unreflecting love!—then on the shore\\
+Of the wide world I stand alone, and think,\\
+Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.
 \end{verse}
-
+%\pagebreak
-\noindent We have always borne an obsession with Emily Dickinson. For years and years, and years and years and years she has lived within us, a remnant of some stage play we performed with our superlative friend, centuries back now.
 
 Is it so surprising, then, that after cross-tree merging had been introduced as an option for us, that the one who would seek to collect within themself the entirety of the Ode clade—those who remain, dear readers!—would take for a name a line of Dickinson? We will be ever ourselves.
 
@@ -625,7 +833,6 @@ Is it so surprising, then, that after cross-tree merging had been introduced as
   Unreal city, city full of dreams,\\
   Where ghosts in broad daylight cling to passsers-by.
 \end{verse}
-\pagebreak
 
 \paragraph{Page \pageref{graves}}
 \emph{She, then, like so many leaves} [\ldots]
@@ -638,19 +845,20 @@ Is it so surprising, then, that after cross-tree merging had been introduced as
   She, then, like snow in a dark night\\
   Fell secretly.
 \end{verse}
+\pagebreak
 
 \paragraph{Page \pageref{threadgall}}
 \emph{That unfalling ones are trapped within that last falling!}
 
-\noindent Cf. Threadgall:
+\noindent Cf. Richard Threadgall:
 
 \begin{verse}
 Tell to me the secret life of birds.\\
 No solicitors of the hungry sky are they;\\
 No, nor is the rainwater parting head a bookhouse dialect,\\
 Or antiquary\\
-But says, "I am citizen to the eternal now,\\
+But says, ``I am citizen to the eternal now,\\
-Republic builder of unfalling ones."\\
+Republic builder of unfalling ones.''\\
 Bound to remembering blood and numbered suns,\\
 What speech do we give him from our earthy furrow?\\
 That he has no history who has feared no pain?\\
@@ -660,7 +868,6 @@ That unfalling ones are trapped in that last falling? \\
 What stale rejoinders birds are unmoored with!\\
 The unsuffering sky exhales them in a breath.
 \end{verse}
-\pagebreak
 
 \paragraph{Page \pageref{enough}}
 \emph{``Oh! Oh, I do believe this is some plentiful enough for me.''}
@@ -687,7 +894,9 @@ where the calculation to many digits\\
 comes out number-less.
 \end{verse}
 
-\noindent One imagines that a `plentiful enough' lies at some theoretical midpoint on this limitless scale from `merely too little' to `empty too much'. One imagines it a place just outside that `toilsome nowhere'. I imagine it, my friends. I \emph{have} to imagine it! I have to imagine that Lagrange, the System, our embedded world is plentifully enough, and not some empty too much, not after so much loss.
+\noindent One imagines that a `plentiful enough' lies at some theoretical midpoint on this limitless scale from 'merely too little' to 'empty too much'. One imagines it a place just outside that `toilsome nowhere': perhaps it sits just outside that scale, as, I fear, I hope, The Woman sits now outside the scale running from joy to suffering, having relinquished such dichotomies and embraced them—become them!—in equal measure.
+
+I \emph{have} to imagine it! I have to imagine that Lagrange, the System, our embedded world is plentifully enough, and not some empty too much, not after so much loss, lest I engage too readily with the fleetingness of us, a perhaps futility, a spending of time in a toilsome nowhere. Thoughts spinning out into that nowhere, crammed into a too little, emptying with a burst into some too much\ldots
 
 \paragraph{Page \pageref{cummings-mbt}}
 [\ldots] \emph{breathe in a million billion trillion years} [\ldots]
@@ -701,6 +910,7 @@ comes out number-less.
   and staggered banged with terror through\\
   a million billion trillion stars.
 \end{verse}
+\pagebreak
 
 \paragraph{Page \pageref{bees}}
 [\ldots] \emph{unbitter sweetness} [\ldots]
@@ -726,10 +936,10 @@ Are we together, The Woman and I, multiplied? When she and I, when her story and
 
 Are we crossed? Do we as ideas lay across each other perpendicularly? The Woman fell into stillness and I fall still through eternal, jittery, restless movement. The woman set aside her agency, in the end, and I strive for any sense of control over myself, my language, my words and sentences and paragraphs and stories. We are diametrically opposed in so many ways. We cross each other, our paths cross each other's, we approached at a ninety degree angle, and, in the end, departed at such an angle.
 
-Are we set beside each other as some fictional love? Some two characters set within fan fiction who love each other in a way pure or unchaste in others' minds? Do I love her? Do I love The Woman? Did she love me?
+Are we set beside each other as some fictional love? Some two characters set within fan fiction who love each other in a way pure or unchaste in others' minds, star-crossed? Do I love her? Do I love The Woman? Did she love me?
 
 I do not know, my dear readers. I do not know these things and I do not know many more.
 
-Perhaps, though, perhaps the × stands for the decision that I made. It is the role I played in letting The Woman, that beautiful soul who bestowed a blessing with every smile, step away from the world, for removing those blessings from us, that beauty from us, that life, that veil.
+Perhaps, though, perhaps it stands for that final decision: × marks the point at which I made up my mind. It is the role I played in letting The Woman, that beautiful soul who bestowed a blessing with every smile, step away from the world, for removing those blessings from us, that beauty from us, that life, that veil.
 
 I am so, so incredibly sorry, and also rather proud of what I have done, of helping The Woman in so noble an endeavor, in equal measure.

idumea/graphomania.html

@@ -19,26 +19,24 @@
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
+<span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">What will become of me? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
+<span style="position: relative; left: 5.0em; top: 5.0em; opacity: 0.07999999999999996">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
-<span style="position: relative; left: 5.0em; top: 5.0em; opacity: 0.2857142857142857">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
-<span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">What will become of me? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
-<span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">What will become of me? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
-<span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">What will become of me? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
+<span style="position: relative; left: -5.0em; top: -5.0em; opacity: 0.25">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
-<span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">What will become of me? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
@@ -46,21 +44,27 @@
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
-<span style="position: relative; left: -5.0em; top: -5.0em; opacity: 0.3877551020408163">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
+<span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">What will become of me? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
+<span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">What will become of me? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
+<span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">What will become of me? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
-<span style="position: relative; left: 5.0em; top: 5.0em; opacity: 0.1228070175438597">And am I born to die? </span>
+<span style="position: relative; left: -5.0em; top: -13.88888888888889em; opacity: 0.9473684210526316">And am I born to die? </span>
-<span style="position: relative; left: 5.0em; top: 5.0em; opacity: 0.39655172413793105">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
+<span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">What will become of me? </span>
+<span style="position: relative; left: -5.0em; top: -5.0em; opacity: 0.9">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
+<span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">What will become of me? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
+<span style="position: relative; left: -5.0em; top: -5.0em; opacity: 0.4">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
+<span style="position: relative; left: 5.0em; top: 5.0em; opacity: 0.6567164179104478">What will become of me? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">What will become of me? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
@@ -68,34 +72,29 @@
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
-<span style="position: relative; left: 5.0em; top: 12.272727272727273em; opacity: 0.9295774647887324">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
-<span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">What will become of me? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
-<span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">What will become of me? </span>
+<span style="position: relative; left: -5.0em; top: -5.0em; opacity: 0.1923076923076923">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
-<span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">What will become of me? </span>
-<span style="position: relative; left: -5.0em; top: -5.0em; opacity: 0.5185185185185186">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
-<span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">What will become of me? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
+<span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">What will become of me? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
+<span style="position: relative; left: 5.0em; top: 5.0em; opacity: 0.8089887640449438">And am I born to die? </span>
+<span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">What will become of me? </span>
+<span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">What will become of me? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">What will become of me? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
-<span style="position: relative; left: -5.0em; top: -5.0em; opacity: 0.7765957446808511">And am I born to die? </span>
-<span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">What will become of me? </span>
-<span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
-<span style="position: relative; left: 13.75em; top: 5.0em; opacity: 0.9795918367346939">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">What will become of me? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">What will become of me? </span>
@@ -104,69 +103,73 @@
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
-<span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">What will become of me? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
-<span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">What will become of me? </span>
+<span style="position: relative; left: -13.152173913043478em; top: -14.456521739130435em; opacity: 0.8598130841121495">And am I born to die? </span>
-<span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">What will become of me? </span>
-<span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">What will become of me? </span>
-<span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">What will become of me? </span>
-<span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">What will become of me? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
+<span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">What will become of me? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
-<span style="position: relative; left: -0.0em; top: -5.0em; opacity: 0.5128205128205128">What will become of me? </span>
+<span style="position: relative; left: 5.0em; top: 5.0em; opacity: 0.0982142857142857">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">What will become of me? </span>
-<span style="position: relative; left: -5.0em; top: -5.0em; opacity: 0.2941176470588235">What will become of me? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
-<span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">What will become of me? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
+<span style="position: relative; left: 5.0em; top: 5.0em; opacity: 0.18103448275862066">What will become of me? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
-<span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">What will become of me? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
+<span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">What will become of me? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
+<span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">What will become of me? </span>
+<span style="position: relative; left: -5.0em; top: -5.0em; opacity: 0.7804878048780488">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">What will become of me? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">What will become of me? </span>
+<span style="position: relative; left: -5.0em; top: -13.878504672897197em; opacity: 0.8359375">What will become of me? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
+<span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">What will become of me? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">What will become of me? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
-<span style="position: relative; left: 5.0em; top: 5.0em; opacity: 0.3115942028985508">And am I born to die? </span>
+<span style="position: relative; left: 5.0em; top: 5.0em; opacity: 0.1470588235294118">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">What will become of me? </span>
-<span style="position: relative; left: 5.0em; top: 5.0em; opacity: 0.3146853146853147">And am I born to die? </span>
+<span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">What will become of me? </span>
-<span style="position: relative; left: 13.467741935483872em; top: 5.0em; opacity: 0.8435374149659864">And am I born to die? </span>
-<span style="position: relative; left: -5.0em; top: -5.0em; opacity: 0.14864864864864868">What will become of me? </span>
-<span style="position: relative; left: -5.0em; top: -12.1875em; opacity: 0.21476510067114096">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
+<span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">What will become of me? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
+<span style="position: relative; left: -5.0em; top: -14.09090909090909em; opacity: 0.43137254901960786">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">What will become of me? </span>
-<span style="position: relative; left: 5.0em; top: 5.0em; opacity: 0.22784810126582278">What will become of me? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
-<span style="position: relative; left: -5.0em; top: -5.0em; opacity: 0.18518518518518523">What will become of me? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">What will become of me? </span>
+<span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
+<span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
+<span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
+<span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
+<span style="position: relative; left: -5.0em; top: -5.0em; opacity: 0.6134969325153374">And am I born to die? </span>
+<span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">What will become of me? </span>
-<span style="position: relative; left: -5.0em; top: -5.0em; opacity: 0.12727272727272732">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
+<span style="position: relative; left: -5.0em; top: -12.818181818181818em; opacity: 0.6586826347305389">What will become of me? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">What will become of me? </span>
-<span style="position: relative; left: -13.461538461538462em; top: -5.0em; opacity: 0.3076923076923077">What will become of me? </span>
+<span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
+<span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
+<span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">What will become of me? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">What will become of me? </span>
@@ -174,326 +177,323 @@
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
-<span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">What will become of me? </span>
-<span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">What will become of me? </span>
-<span style="position: relative; left: -5.0em; top: -5.0em; opacity: 0.7318435754189945">And am I born to die? </span>
-<span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">What will become of me? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
+<span style="position: relative; left: -5.0em; top: -5.0em; opacity: 0.1712707182320442">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
-<span style="position: relative; left: -5.0em; top: -5.0em; opacity: 0.13586956521739135">What will become of me? </span>
+<span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">What will become of me? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
+<span style="position: relative; left: -5.0em; top: -11.296296296296298em; opacity: 0.14516129032258063">What will become of me? </span>
+<span style="position: relative; left: 5.0em; top: 10.294117647058822em; opacity: 0.36363636363636365">What will become of me? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
-<span style="position: relative; left: 5.0em; top: 14.076923076923077em; opacity: 0.3475935828877005">And am I born to die? </span>
-<span style="position: relative; left: -5.0em; top: -5.0em; opacity: 0.4414893617021277">What will become of me? </span>
-<span style="position: relative; left: 5.0em; top: 5.0em; opacity: 0.3862433862433863">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">What will become of me? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">What will become of me? </span>
-<span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
-<span style="position: relative; left: -5.0em; top: -5.0em; opacity: 0.6113989637305699">What will become of me? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">What will become of me? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
-<span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">What will become of me? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
-<span style="position: relative; left: -5.0em; top: -5.0em; opacity: 0.04477611940298509">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
-<span style="position: relative; left: 5.0em; top: 5.0em; opacity: 0.5049019607843137">And am I born to die? </span>
-<span style="position: relative; left: 5.0em; top: 5.0em; opacity: 0.19999999999999996">What will become of me? </span>
-<span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">What will become of me? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">What will become of me? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
-<span style="position: relative; left: 5.0em; top: 5.0em; opacity: 0.46190476190476193">What will become of me? </span>
+<span style="position: relative; left: 5.0em; top: 5.0em; opacity: 0.12871287128712872">And am I born to die? </span>
-<span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
+<span style="position: relative; left: 5.0em; top: 5.0em; opacity: 0.7241379310344828">What will become of me? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">What will become of me? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">What will become of me? </span>
+<span style="position: relative; left: -5.0em; top: -5.0em; opacity: 0.7961165048543689">And am I born to die? </span>
+<span style="position: relative; left: 5.0em; top: 14.879518072289157em; opacity: 0.8019323671497585">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">What will become of me? </span>
+<span style="position: relative; left: -11.230366492146597em; top: -13.37696335078534em; opacity: 0.9138755980861244">What will become of me? </span>
+<span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">What will become of me? </span>
-<span style="position: relative; left: 5.0em; top: 10.384615384615383em; opacity: 0.6589861751152073">And am I born to die? </span>
-<span style="position: relative; left: -5.0em; top: -5.0em; opacity: 0.03669724770642202">What will become of me? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
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 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">What will become of me? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
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 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">What will become of me? </span>
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-<span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
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 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">What will become of me? </span>
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 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">And am I born to die? </span>
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-<span style="position: relative; left: -14.84em; top: -5.0em; opacity: 0.8169934640522876">What will become of me? </span>
+<span style="position: relative; left: -5.0em; top: -12.414634146341463em; opacity: 0.4545454545454546">What will become of me? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">What will become of me? </span>
-<span style="position: relative; left: -5.0em; top: -13.969072164948454em; opacity: 0.42082429501084595">What will become of me? </span>
+<span style="position: relative; left: 12.382352941176471em; top: 12.617647058823529em; opacity: 0.750551876379691">What will become of me? </span>
+<span style="position: relative; left: 13.730512249443207em; top: 12.082405345211582em; opacity: 0.9889867841409692">What will become of me? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">What will become of me? </span>
-<span style="position: relative; left: 5.0em; top: 5.0em; opacity: 0.21166306695464365">What will become of me? </span>
-<span style="position: relative; left: 10.141242937853107em; top: 13.220338983050848em; opacity: 0.7629310344827587">What will become of me? </span>
-<span style="position: relative; left: -12.191011235955056em; top: -11.891385767790261em; opacity: 0.5741935483870968">What will become of me? </span>
-<span style="position: relative; left: 13.698481561822126em; top: 13.958785249457701em; opacity: 0.9892703862660944">What will become of me? </span>
-<span style="position: relative; left: 14.978494623655914em; top: 13.451612903225806em; opacity: 0.9957173447537473">What will become of me? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">What will become of me? </span>
-<span style="position: relative; left: 5.0em; top: 5.0em; opacity: 0.49040511727078895">What will become of me? </span>
+<span style="position: relative; left: -10.955678670360111em; top: -14.97229916897507em; opacity: 0.7899343544857769">What will become of me? </span>
-<span style="position: relative; left: 14.833333333333334em; top: 5.0em; opacity: 0.6382978723404256">What will become of me? </span>
+<span style="position: relative; left: -13.710801393728223em; top: -13.78048780487805em; opacity: 0.6266375545851528">And am I born to die? </span>
-<span style="position: relative; left: 13.60635696821516em; top: 14.63325183374083em; opacity: 0.8683651804670913">What will become of me? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">What will become of me? </span>
+<span style="position: relative; left: 14.215246636771301em; top: 14.865470852017937em; opacity: 0.9695652173913043">What will become of me? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">What will become of me? </span>
-<span style="position: relative; left: -12.647058823529411em; top: -5.0em; opacity: 0.430379746835443">What will become of me? </span>
+<span style="position: relative; left: 10.754716981132075em; top: 5.0em; opacity: 0.22943722943722944">What will become of me? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">What will become of me? </span>
-<span style="position: relative; left: -14.745222929936306em; top: -5.0em; opacity: 0.6596638655462185">What will become of me? </span>
-<span style="position: relative; left: 14.568345323741006em; top: 5.0em; opacity: 0.2914046121593291">What will become of me? </span>
-<span style="position: relative; left: 10.366568914956012em; top: 14.970674486803519em; opacity: 0.7133891213389121">What will become of me? </span>
-<span style="position: relative; left: -13.231511254019292em; top: -13.681672025723472em; opacity: 0.6492693110647181">What will become of me? </span>
-<span style="position: relative; left: 11.53012048192771em; top: 11.240963855421686em; opacity: 0.8645833333333334">What will become of me? </span>
-<span style="position: relative; left: -14.94413407821229em; top: -12.122905027932962em; opacity: 0.7442827442827442">What will become of me? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">What will become of me? </span>
-<span style="position: relative; left: -0.0em; top: -14.727463312368974em; opacity: 0.9875776397515528">What will become of me? </span>
+<span style="position: relative; left: 5.0em; top: 11.590909090909092em; opacity: 0.18924731182795695">What will become of me? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">What will become of me? </span>
+<span style="position: relative; left: 5.0em; top: 5.0em; opacity: 0.7130620985010707">What will become of me? </span>
+<span style="position: relative; left: 5.0em; top: 5.0em; opacity: 0.3867521367521367">What will become of me? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">What will become of me? </span>
+<span style="position: relative; left: 5.0em; top: 5.0em; opacity: 0.21063829787234045">What will become of me? </span>
+<span style="position: relative; left: 14.949238578680204em; top: 14.365482233502538em; opacity: 0.8365180467091295">What will become of me? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">What will become of me? </span>
+<span style="position: relative; left: -13.181818181818182em; top: -0.0em; opacity: 0.4418604651162791">What will become of me? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">What will become of me? </span>
-<span style="position: relative; left: -14.54356846473029em; top: -5.0em; opacity: 0.9877049180327869">What will become of me? </span>
-<span style="position: relative; left: -5.0em; top: -13.867924528301886em; opacity: 0.6503067484662577">What will become of me? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">What will become of me? </span>
+<span style="position: relative; left: -5.0em; top: -5.0em; opacity: 0.4831932773109243">What will become of me? </span>
+<span style="position: relative; left: 13.926174496644295em; top: 5.0em; opacity: 0.6247379454926625">What will become of me? </span>
+<span style="position: relative; left: 5.0em; top: 5.0em; opacity: 0.07322175732217573">What will become of me? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">What will become of me? </span>
+<span style="position: relative; left: 5.0em; top: 10.441696113074205em; opacity: 0.5895833333333333">What will become of me? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">What will become of me? </span>
-<span style="position: relative; left: -5.0em; top: -11.859205776173285em; opacity: 0.5618661257606491">What will become of me? </span>
+<span style="position: relative; left: 5.0em; top: 5.0em; opacity: 0.37344398340248963">What will become of me? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">What will become of me? </span>
+<span style="position: relative; left: -14.100418410041842em; top: -12.845188284518828em; opacity: 0.987603305785124">What will become of me? </span>
+<span style="position: relative; left: -14.946091644204852em; top: -14.110512129380053em; opacity: 0.7649484536082474">What will become of me? </span>
+<span style="position: relative; left: -5.0em; top: -5.0em; opacity: 0.07407407407407407">What will become of me? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">What will become of me? </span>
-<span style="position: relative; left: 5.0em; top: 14.340659340659341em; opacity: 0.9173387096774194">What will become of me? </span>
+<span style="position: relative; left: 5.0em; top: 5.0em; opacity: 0.055327868852458995">What will become of me? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">What will become of me? </span>
+<span style="position: relative; left: -14.446254071661238em; top: -13.013029315960912em; opacity: 0.6265306122448979">What will become of me? </span>
+<span style="position: relative; left: 11.468926553672317em; top: 13.898305084745763em; opacity: 0.7209775967413442">And am I born to die? </span>
+<span style="position: relative; left: 5.0em; top: 5.0em; opacity: 0.41056910569105687">What will become of me? </span>
+<span style="position: relative; left: 5.0em; top: 5.0em; opacity: 0.24137931034482762">What will become of me? </span>
+<span style="position: relative; left: 5.0em; top: 5.0em; opacity: 0.04858299595141702">What will become of me? </span>
+<span style="position: relative; left: -13.960244648318042em; top: -5.0em; opacity: 0.6606060606060606">What will become of me? </span>
+<span style="position: relative; left: 11.885245901639344em; top: 5.0em; opacity: 0.6149193548387097">What will become of me? </span>
+<span style="position: relative; left: 14.195402298850574em; top: 12.425287356321839em; opacity: 0.8752515090543259">What will become of me? </span>
 <span style="position: relative; left: 0em; top: 0em; opacity: 1">What will become of me? </span>
-<span style="position: relative; left: -5.0em; top: -5.0em; opacity: 0.07414829659318634">What will become of me? </span>
+<span style="position: relative; left: -13.625em; top: -11.775em; opacity: 0.8016032064128257">What will become of me? </span>

idumea/graphomania.py

@@ -55,8 +55,8 @@ def graphomania():
             # Todo:
             # - text size
             # - color
-            dx = (float(i - r * dir) % float(rx) / (r - i) * 10) % 15.0
+            dx = (float(i - r) % float(rx) / (r - i) * 10) % 15.0 * dir
-            dy = (float(i - r * dir) % float(ry) / (r - i) * 10) % 15.0
+            dy = (float(i - r) % float(ry) / (r - i) * 10) % 15.0 * dir
             color = str(hex(math.floor((i - r) % 16)))[2] * 6
 
             

idumea/graphomania.tex

@@ -5,29 +5,8 @@
 \fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
 \fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
 \fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=222222,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{-6.0em}\raisebox{-5.0em}{And am I born to die? }
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=777777,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{6.0em}\raisebox{5.0em}{And am I born to die? }
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]What will become of me? 
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]What will become of me? 
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]What will become of me? 
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
 \fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
 \fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
 \fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]What will become of me? 
@@ -35,115 +14,136 @@
 \fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
 \fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
 \fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]What will become of me? 
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
 \fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]What will become of me? 
 \fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
 \fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
 \fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]What will become of me? 
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=ffffff,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{-17.2em}\raisebox{-5.0em}{And am I born to die? }
 \fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=222222,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{6.0em}\raisebox{5.0em}{And am I born to die? }
 \fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=dddddd,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{6.0em}\raisebox{5.0em}{And am I born to die? }
 \fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]What will become of me? 
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=444444,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{-17.4em}\raisebox{-5.0em}{And am I born to die? }
 \fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
 \fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=666666,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{6.0em}\raisebox{14.210526315789474em}{And am I born to die? }
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=999999,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{16.97560975609756em}\raisebox{14.146341463414632em}{And am I born to die? }
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
 \fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
 \fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]What will become of me? 
 \fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=222222,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{3.9999999999999982em}\raisebox{11.666666666666668em}{And am I born to die? }
 \fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]What will become of me? 
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=888888,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{6.0em}\raisebox{12.5em}{And am I born to die? }
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=bbbbbb,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{-6.0em}\raisebox{-5.0em}{What will become of me? }
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=cccccc,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{12.0em}\raisebox{3.2142857142857135em}{And am I born to die? }
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=333333,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{6.0em}\raisebox{5.0em}{And am I born to die? }
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=999999,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{6.0em}\raisebox{5.0em}{And am I born to die? }
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=cccccc,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{10.909090909090912em}\raisebox{12.5em}{And am I born to die? }
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]What will become of me? 
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=222222,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{3.818181818181818em}\raisebox{3.1818181818181817em}{What will become of me? }
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=777777,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{13.943661971830986em}\raisebox{5.0em}{And am I born to die? }
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=eeeeee,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{6.0em}\raisebox{5.0em}{What will become of me? }
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=444444,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{6.0em}\raisebox{5.0em}{And am I born to die? }
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=555555,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{13.478260869565219em}\raisebox{14.27536231884058em}{And am I born to die? }
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]What will become of me? 
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]What will become of me? 
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=777777,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{6.0em}\raisebox{13.873239436619718em}{And am I born to die? }
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=777777,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{6.0em}\raisebox{5.0em}{And am I born to die? }
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=666666,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{6.0em}\raisebox{6.666666666666671em}{And am I born to die? }
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=999999,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{0.0821917808219176em}\raisebox{14.452054794520548em}{What will become of me? }
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=777777,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{17.586206896551722em}\raisebox{14.195402298850574em}{What will become of me? }
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=777777,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{11.217391304347828em}\raisebox{2.391304347826086em}{And am I born to die? }
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=111111,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{13.384615384615383em}And am I born to die? 
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]What will become of me? 
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
 \fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
 \fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]What will become of me? 
 \fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]What will become of me? 
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=333333,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{13.885714285714284em}\raisebox{5.0em}{And am I born to die? }
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]What will become of me? 
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]What will become of me? 
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=ffffff,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{-6.0em}\raisebox{-5.0em}{What will become of me? }
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]What will become of me? 
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=999999,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{-6.0em}\raisebox{-5.0em}{What will become of me? }
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
 \fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=111111,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{6.0em}\raisebox{5.0em}{And am I born to die? }
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]What will become of me? 
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=777777,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{-6.0em}\raisebox{-5.0em}{And am I born to die? }
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=eeeeee,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{6.0em}\raisebox{5.0em}{And am I born to die? }
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]What will become of me? 
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]What will become of me? 
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]What will become of me? 
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=ffffff,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{16.21276595744681em}\raisebox{13.085106382978724em}{And am I born to die? }
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=444444,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{-6.0em}\raisebox{-5.0em}{And am I born to die? }
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=cccccc,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{6.0em}\raisebox{5.0em}{And am I born to die? }
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]What will become of me? 
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=cccccc,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{6.0em}\raisebox{5.0em}{What will become of me? }
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=777777,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{6.0em}\raisebox{5.0em}{And am I born to die? }
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{-16.8em}\raisebox{-5.0em}{And am I born to die? }
 \fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=777777,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{6.0em}\raisebox{5.0em}{What will become of me? }
 \fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]What will become of me? 
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=bbbbbb,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{-6.0em}\raisebox{-5.0em}{What will become of me? }
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]What will become of me? 
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=555555,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{6.0em}\raisebox{5.0em}{And am I born to die? }
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=777777,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{-6.0em}\raisebox{-5.0em}{And am I born to die? }
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=cccccc,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{-13.090909090909092em}\raisebox{-5.0em}{What will become of me? }
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=aaaaaa,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{6.0em}\raisebox{10.344827586206897em}{And am I born to die? }
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=aaaaaa,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{-6.0em}\raisebox{-13.10344827586207em}{And am I born to die? }
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]What will become of me? 
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=888888,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{6.0em}\raisebox{5.0em}{And am I born to die? }
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=999999,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{13.415730337078651em}\raisebox{12.191011235955056em}{And am I born to die? }
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]What will become of me? 
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=cccccc,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{16.736842105263158em}\raisebox{5.0em}{And am I born to die? }
 \fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]What will become of me? 
 \fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]What will become of me? 
 \fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
 \fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]What will become of me? 
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=222222,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{-17.09090909090909em}\raisebox{-14.09090909090909em}{What will become of me? }
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=333333,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{-6.0em}\raisebox{-11.862745098039216em}{And am I born to die? }
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=cccccc,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{6.0em}\raisebox{5.0em}{What will become of me? }
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{15.499999999999998em}\raisebox{13.541666666666666em}{What will become of me? }
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=aaaaaa,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{6.0em}\raisebox{5.0em}{What will become of me? }
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=ffffff,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{-6.0em}\raisebox{-5.0em}{What will become of me? }
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=ffffff,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{-15.702127659574469em}\raisebox{-11.382978723404255em}{What will become of me? }
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=777777,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{6.0em}\raisebox{5.0em}{And am I born to die? }
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]What will become of me? 
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=666666,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{-16.046511627906977em}\raisebox{-5.0em}{And am I born to die? }
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=333333,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{-6.0em}\raisebox{-5.0em}{And am I born to die? }
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=dddddd,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{-6.0em}\raisebox{-5.0em}{What will become of me? }
 \fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=555555,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{17.675675675675674em}\raisebox{7.0270270270270245em}{And am I born to die? }
 \fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
 \fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]What will become of me? 
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=888888,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{17.59090909090909em}\raisebox{13.068181818181818em}{What will become of me? }
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=aaaaaa,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{-15.2em}\raisebox{-14.333333333333334em}{And am I born to die? }
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=333333,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{6.0em}\raisebox{5.0em}{What will become of me? }
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=888888,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{-15.272727272727272em}\raisebox{-5.0em}{What will become of me? }
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=cccccc,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{17.77777777777778em}\raisebox{10.092592592592592em}{And am I born to die? }
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=222222,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{6.0em}\raisebox{14.411764705882353em}{What will become of me? }
 \fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]What will become of me? 
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=444444,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{12.413793103448276em}\raisebox{13.189655172413794em}{And am I born to die? }
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=555555,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{-6.0em}\raisebox{-5.0em}{What will become of me? }
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=eeeeee,Ligatures=TeX]\raisebox{2.096774193548388em}{And am I born to die? }
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=999999,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{17.657142857142855em}\raisebox{11.285714285714285em}{What will become of me? }
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=dddddd,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{17.229357798165136em}\raisebox{13.807339449541285em}{And am I born to die? }
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]What will become of me? 
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=444444,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{15.333333333333334em}\raisebox{5.0em}{What will become of me? }
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=888888,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{17.4em}And am I born to die? 
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]What will become of me? 
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=333333,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{6.0em}\raisebox{5.0em}{And am I born to die? }
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=111111,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{11.097345132743362em}\raisebox{11.017699115044248em}{What will become of me? }
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=eeeeee,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{6.0em}\raisebox{14.130434782608695em}{What will become of me? }
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=eeeeee,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{6.0em}\raisebox{5.0em}{What will become of me? }
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=222222,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{16.363636363636363em}\raisebox{2.7272727272727266em}{And am I born to die? }
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=333333,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{8.865671641791044em}\raisebox{3.6567164179104488em}{And am I born to die? }
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=888888,Ligatures=TeX]\raisebox{8.75em}{What will become of me? }
 \fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
 \fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]What will become of me? 
 \fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]What will become of me? 
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=888888,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{6.0em}\raisebox{5.0em}{What will become of me? }
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=777777,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{6.0em}\raisebox{5.0em}{And am I born to die? }
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]What will become of me? 
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{6.0em}\raisebox{14.765625em}{And am I born to die? }
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=111111,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{16.666666666666668em}\raisebox{5.0em}{And am I born to die? }
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=cccccc,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{16.8em}\raisebox{5.0em}{And am I born to die? }
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=888888,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{15.2em}\raisebox{10.5em}{What will become of me? }
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=555555,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{-16.871794871794872em}\raisebox{-5.0em}{What will become of me? }
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]What will become of me? 
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=111111,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{12.511627906976743em}\raisebox{13.217054263565892em}{What will become of me? }
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=999999,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{14.330578512396693em}\raisebox{14.09090909090909em}{What will become of me? }
-\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=777777,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{8.571428571428575em}\raisebox{9.285714285714285em}{What will become of me? }
 \fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]What will become of me? 
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=777777,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{-15.633802816901408em}\raisebox{-5.0em}{What will become of me? }
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=000000,Ligatures=TeX]And am I born to die? 
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=dddddd,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{17.586206896551722em}\raisebox{5.0em}{What will become of me? }
+\fontspec{Gentium Book Plus}[Color=aaaaaa,Ligatures=TeX]\hspace{16.173913043478258em}\raisebox{5.0em}{What will become of me? }

idumea/includes/pagelayout.tex

@@ -16,7 +16,7 @@
   \renewcommand{\chapternamenum}{}
   \renewcommand{\printchapternum}{}
   \renewcommand{\printchaptertitle}[1]{%
-  \TitleFont\huge ##1}
+  \linespread{1}\TitleFont\centering\huge ##1}
   \renewcommand{\partnamefont}{\DisplayFont\huge}
   \renewcommand{\partnumfont}{\DisplayFont\huge}
   \renewcommand{\parttitlefont}{\DisplayFont\Huge}