( WATCH ME AS I TERRIFY. )

summary: She doesn’t ask how Agnes knew there was danger. Sometimes things are simply Known. Sometimes Gertrude finds herself setting pieces of paper aflame just to watch them burn. These are things they give each other.

Gifts, perhaps.

“Thank you,” Gertrude says. Dry. Like the words aren’t suited to her lips, even when Agnes has just, she’s certain, saved her life. Her coworkers must be getting their wits back around her, climbing to their feet, but Gertrude’s vision has tunneled and she sees only Agnes. As if Agnes is the only person who has ever existed, and the only person who ever will. It isn’t the first time Gertrude has had this thought. It won’t be the last.

She doesn’t ask how Agnes knew there was danger. Sometimes things are simply Known. Sometimes Gertrude finds herself setting pieces of paper aflame just to watch them burn. These are things they give each other.

there will be a terrible price to be paid. but i will pay it.

perhaps one day a certain kind of failure might be enough.

i remember you. you were a dream i had. a dream i made. that’s all you are.

i think you are beautiful.

no one should have to feel responsible for the entire world.

who knows what is truth, and what is story?

i will protect you forever and a day as i am able.

you know me and now i remember me. but i don’t know you.

it doesn’t matter what i would’ve done. only what i did.

what is a person but someone who turned monstrous, anyway? what is a person but a kind of demon?

it’s all right. you already told me what to do.

why should it hurt so much?

maybe i’ve always known you.

in the end, i loved the world, so i remained in the world.

there is nothing i could have told you that would’ve made a difference. nothing at all.

you’re a monster just like the rest of them.

you have to open your heart to as much as you can. as much as you can stand. no matter the cost.

most days, all i have is reality, which is nonsense too.

in truth, some demons were once people who did bad things but knew better. in truth, people were demons when they didn’t know any better.

don’t you want to be revealed?

if the world is to live, we must make better things.

would knowing be too much?

did you ever have a need so great that the vestiges of your mission existed even if you weren’t sure you did?

did you ever believe you were a ghost?

nothing thrives without being broken.

agony repeated so many times is a different kind of suffering.

it could be he liked to hurt me and there was no one to stop him.

how could this not be hell?

i know all the stories are really about me.

i’m out of place. i’m not meant to be here.

i’ve learned to like it here. it’s quiet. i can be alone.

i am worth something. i am not just a monster.

it hurt somewhere so basic, so plain, so laid bare, that i could not hide from it.

my body knew what my mind did not.

i was a mind tumbling end over end until the halt.

was it beautiful?

someday i’ll kill you and that will be beautiful.

in time i escaped, yes. but i wasn’t free.

not being alive is too much to bear.

maybe it was a nightmare or dream. maybe it was just a story.

do you think i could do that?

can you not distinguish truth from fiction? or were you never taught the difference?

killing is easy. i think that’s why people do it so much.

when i’m gone, what will remain?

everything will remain.

in the end, joy cannot fend off evil. joy can only remind you why you fight.

if you change the enemy enough, if you wear them down, perhaps losing is good enough.

do you know me?

oh, my love, what will i do without you?

sentence   starters   based   on   w.   eno’s   tragedy:   a   tragedy.  adjust   as   needed.

❝ we’re all going to die, violently. please be nice. ❞

❝ i’ve just gotten word that i don’t know anything. ❞

❝ day is gone. it does not, now and perhaps ever, seem to be coming back.  ❞

❝ thank you for your confidence, which i will now betray.  ❞

❝ is the sense of tragedy palpable? ❞

❝ once you stop to look, everyone has the most beautiful eyes. ❞

❝ we speak to keep the wolf of loneliness at bay. ❞

❝ i think about coming home when there was no one home. ❞

❝ i fell down and pounded on the earth. i did this, perhaps, in hopes that it might know our sorrow. ❞

❝ everything i’ve ever said was untimely of me to say. ❞

❝ born to wait, wonder, and die, were we. ❞

❝ if you’re so afraid, why don’t you just panic? ❞

❝ i deserve nothing and i thank you for giving me it. ❞

❝ keep in touch. be sweet to yourself. ❞

❝ in darkness we shall reign and prosper, until we freeze to death.  ❞

❝ can what we are doing be called “enduring,” when we would not call it that? ❞

❝ i careen heart-first and bookless into the blackening night. ❞

❝ we are wandering through life on a television in someone’s living room. ❞

❝ any response is a worthy response, even if it’s ultimately worthless. ❞

❝ the night seems to be getting smarter. ❞

❝ i did some soul searching but didn’t find anything. ❞

❝ legally, everybody is going to be dead. ❞

❝ do you ever get the feeling that something slow and violent was about to happen? ❞

❝ it’s dark inside of us; i mean that as no metaphor. ❞

❝ the night has produced an eloquent speaker. ❞

❝ so now my life lives itself out, in revisions of revisions of something that was blurry to begin with. ❞

❝ i’ve weighed both sides very carefully. i don’t care about either one. ❞

❝ don’t we have a duty? at least, a curiosity? ❞