𓇗

“—the world looks staringly, and I find I need more v[e]il—”

“Images are not just passive entities that coexist with their human hosts, any more than the microorganisms that dwell in our intestines. They change the way we think and see and dream. They refunction our memories and imaginations, bringing new criteria and new desires into the world.”

She wants to look beautiful after she is dead. She wants people to admire her: Never has there been a more beautiful dead child. Now her room is dark. Only a distant street lamp glows faintly through the window. Now she no longer cares whether she dies "on foreign soil" or in her own garden. She steps onto the windowsill, holds herself fast to the cord of the shutter, and examines her shadowlike reflection in the mirror one last time. She finds herself lovely. A trace of regret mingles with her determination. "It's over," she says, quietly, and feels dead already, even before her feet leave the windowsill.