I sit here and evoke you, why I cannot explain. Forgive me if I misrepresent you in this alternative reality that I create—speculate?—for you. And for me. I could not imagine you dead and eaten, that there was not some humanity in those people there jostling against the brutality. How can we believe only the worst of them when there are children also running around laughing and playing, and men and women do occasionally sing and love? You showed them to us. We didn’t see. I refused to see. Except here. Joanie: Surely we are a part of them as they are of us…I should have listened to you, Joanie, and then perhaps I could have kept you away from the clutches of the Friend. — #48 The Journalist Layela, the woman who had become her lover, took her outside and down the street, along which Holly had strolled innocently only the day before, in her Safari Apparel outfit, her little mike on her collar to collect all the sounds for her audience back home. The street was noisy and crowded as usual, a few small trucks were parked at the side.
