An awareness had come over him that he wasn’t going to die. Loneliness in itself could not destroy him. Neglect was insufficient. And so he slept.

“I never lie," I said offhand. "At least not to those I don't love.”

“Curses of vanished elders echoed down on me; too pretty, too soft, too pale, ey…”

“I will write things, he was thinking. I will write something meaningful and won…”

“Would that death were like this. Would that one would sleep and sleep and sleep…”