I said, “But when the truth, the underworld, the TOE … reaches up, takes you in its fist, and squeezes … ” I raised my own hand, meaning to demonstrate, but it was already clenched tight involuntarily. “How do you ignore it? How do you deny it? How do you go on fooling yourself that you’ve ever stood above it, ever pulled the strings, ever run the show?”

Sweat was running into my eyes, blinding me. I brushed it away with my clenched fist, laughing. “When every cell, every fucking atom in your body, burns the message into your skin: everything you value, everything you cherish, everything you live for … is just the scum on the surface of a vacuum thirty-five powers of ten deep – how do you go on lying? How do you close your eyes to that? ”

I waited for her answer. Solace, redemption, were within my grasp. I held my arms out toward her in supplication.

Walsh smiled faintly, then walked on without saying a word.

#

I woke in the early hours of the morning. Burning up again, drenched in sweat.

Michael was sitting on the chair beside me, reading from his notepad. The whole ward was lit softly from above, but the light of the words shone up more brightly.

I whispered, “Today, I tried to become … everything I despise. But I couldn’t even manage that.”

He put the notepad down, and waited for me to continue.

“I’m lost. I really am lost.”

Michael glanced at the bedside monitor, and shook his head. “You’re going to live through this. In a week, you won’t even be able to imagine how you feel right now.”

“I’m not talking about the cholera. I’m having—” I laughed; it hurt. “I’m having what Mystical Renaissance would call a spiritual crisis . And I have nowhere to turn to for comfort. Nowhere to turn to for strength. No lover, no family, no nation. No religion, no ideology. Nothing.”

Michael said calmly, “Then you’re lucky. I envy you.”

I gaped at him, appalled by this heartlessness.

He said, “Nowhere to bury your head. Like an ostrich on reef-rock. I envy you. You might learn something.”

I had no reply to that. I started shivering; I was sweating and aching, but icy cold. “I take back what I said about the cholera. It’s fifty-fifty. I’m being equally fucked by both.”

Michael put his hands behind his neck and stretched, then rearranged himself on the chair. “You’re a journalist. Do you want to hear a story?”

“Don’t you have some vital medical work to do?”

“I’m doing it.”

Waves of nausea began sweeping up from my bowels. “Okay, I’ll listen. If you’ll let me record. What’s this story about?”

He grinned. “My own spiritual crisis , of course.”