Conversation · Limbic System

It's easier, this time, drifting off. Your head has found a comfortable indent in the pillow. Your legs and your torso feel like lead weights sinking to the bottom of the sea, until they're suddenly light...

Sing along -- in silent communion.

Blackness, blackness, blackness. The ultimate disco. The ruins of your life behind you, still smouldering. Ashes rise. But you're not looking.

For now -- a little while -- you can...

(Sleep. Without words or images.)

When the pictograms and the hieroglyphs of the world return, they seem silent somehow. The alarm rings quietly too. You're ready.

Ready -- but something is coming. It always is.

[Open your eyes.]

I've heard this song before.

This is greatest hits material. Black tape spinning and spinning and spinning... You finally tired yourself. Cornered the flicker of your mind and extinguished it.

How many days have I been in Martinaise already...

There are no days here. There are no weeks. Just black tape spinning. On repeat. Until the end.

This respite -- you've earned it, brother. Bask in the darkness. Let it swallow you up and swivel you around while you forget everything you've managed to remember...

Is this the last dream?

No. This is the one before that. We'll just keep cycling it for you, if you don't mind. As long as we can. Spin it like black yarn.

Enjoy it while it lasts.

Thank you, darkness. Thank you.

You're welcome, Harry-boy. You earned it.

(Fall into a deep, uninterrupted sleep.)

After centuries of darkness, the alarm rings -- but what's this? You actually feel rested. There's no time to cuddle with your pillow, however, or as much as shiver from the cold. The world awaits.

Go.

But I've been bad. I haven't earned this.

No, you haven't. You've just been.

Oh god...