Volume III: The Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon Crossfire 2 July 1944 DEAR— Before me is a bottle of cognac … half full. I have drunk half the bottle. It is young. It burns. It is good. I sit now in a large kitchen, the most important room of this particular farm house, and look out to a yard that is quite active, in a natural sort of way … i.e., a boar is presently servicing a sow, and I find it most diverting, or, to say the least … distracting. It is now a question of will … mind over country matters, in order for me to take advantage of the last moments of light to type a word or two to you. I am disappointed in the lazy performance of this boar whose seed will turn to sucklings, and many of them, no doubt. How unjust. My wildest efforts amount to nothing!—that is, nothing but a transitory sense of satisfaction. I must interrupt this biological scribendi to partake of more cognac. That pig depresses me. I must have a drink. He’s unmindful of 88’s bursting seeds of death about his cycle of natural functions … but I’m not.
