I asked if her inordinate consumption of water was intended to achieve the same effect. She replied: “That is much too literal an interpretation of my actions, Dr. Berceau.”

I asked her why, in that case, she drank so much water.

“Because when I drink, I am not there. Vector simulator – of course you are there you drink therefore you are there – correction: when I am drinking, drinking is what I am, comme ci comme ca, essential transitivity transition position-counterposition, juxtaposition.”

I asked her what she found appealing about not being there.

“What do you find appealing about that question, over?”

Up to this point, she had been speaking in what I’ve come to call the “Hal” style, which typifies her style of expression on abstract topics, but in this response she reverted to the “air-traffic” style, to which she has recourse when she is resisting. When this happens, it is important to press her. Considering the subject had been her not being there and the importance of establishing what, if any, associations or complexes she may have relating to the death of her cousin, I asked her what she thought about death.

“The wise man thinks least of death,” she said. I believe this is a quotation, not sure from where, spoken in the “Hal” style.

I asked her why it is wise not to think of death.

“Because death is not-thinking, over.”

Here she reverted to “air-traffic.”

I asked her if she was not thinking when she was drinking.

“Thinking is drinking when you drink water,” she said, “Hal” style. “You better leave that junk alone and drink water.”

Another quotation, I think. This was added as a kind of conversational flak, intended to defend her from my pressing in on her thoughts about death. I asked her if she wanted to die.

“I want to live, Dr. Berceau,” she said, “Hal” style.

I told her that I was confused about the difference between dying and falling under the influence of water machine.

“Water machine lives,” she said, still “Hal” style, “and those who achieve its influence, which is not the same, doctor, as falling under an influence, will live indefinitely.”

I asked her if that meant that water machine offered her immortality.

“Water machine is immortality machine,” she said, still “Hal” style. “It undertakes impersonal immortality with those who achieve its influence.”

I asked her if she could explain more about what she called impersonal immortality.

“Immortality in motion,” she said, still in “Hal” style. “Impossible with the fixed element known as personality. Special grid, no outer border. Immortal as water. Water from the oceans ascends to become clouds, descends to become rivers, is consumed to become blood and bio-juices for organisms, is consumed by other organisms, becomes my blood, passes out of me into toilet, to sewer system, is treated and cleaned, restored to ocean. One body of water, one water machine.”

I asked if this meant that water machine was all life on earth.