“My dear? Try to empty your mind of distracting thoughts …”

On a nearby table beside Vnn is a curious object: a box cutter? L.K. has but the vaguest idea of a box cutter but knows that its blade is extremely sharp.

Knows that the box cutter is not preferred by the artist, for its results are very messy. The box cutter is but a useful alternative if chloroform fails.

But why should chloroform fail? It is the humane option.

“Your mind should be emptied, as a clogged, filthy pipe should be emptied. Your mind should be purified of all that is low, petty, debased.”

Yes—she is nodding. Purified …

She has always wished to be purified. Yes. That has been a spiritual goal.

Her tongue is oddly swollen in her mouth. Awkwardly she licks her parched lips. So strange the lips feel to her, she might doubt that they are hers.

Has the artist has appropriated parts of her face already? Tongue, lips. Pert patrician nose. Eyes.

L.K. asks if Vnn will let her go? Though knowing the answer beforehand, yet she feels that she must ask, for it is expected of her.

“ … I never meant to hurt you.”

“You have not hurt me, dear.”

“Anyone whom I have hurt, in my carelessness—I did not mean to …”

“It was another you’d let die, my brother.”

“But—I didn’t mean to let anyone die! I was frightened, panicked …”

L.K. clutches the cloth soaked with chloroform in her hands. She is not certain what Vnn has been telling her.

Feebly trying to rise to her feet. Once on her feet, once strength flows back into her knees, she will be all right, she believes. It is all that she wants now, and nothing more: to be all right.

She will surrender all happiness. All meaning in her life. It is the wisdom of the insomniac: once you have traversed a cycle of twenty-four hours of sleeplessness, you understand that all meaning has faded from the world. And so, your greatest hope is simply to be all right.

Yet she hears a woman’s voice begging. Pleading. No pride. Shame.

Oh, why had she not signaled to the Detroit policemen when the cruiser passed her on the bridge? So easily she might have saved her life, instead of throwing it away negligently, as a princess tossing gold coins into a river.

Wanting has doomed her. And yet, without wanting, what has been her life?

“You know that I can’t let you go, dear. Even if I wanted to. We have passed that point. And that sort of magnanimous gesture isn’t Vnn’s style.”

Matter-of-factly, solemnly, Vnn speaks. Inviting her to concur as a reasonable woman would in such circumstances. We are beyond the gravitational field—we cannot retreat.

L.K. has taken up the wadded cloth in both her hands to steady the trembling. The smell makes her eyes water.