Jottings to warm up for a day’s work at the keyboard.  Nothing preservable, but it purges feelings stirred by a conversation I had this morning at breakfast. 

She lives in a village of the damned.  The people there lost their souls long ago, freely giving them away in  exchange for safety.

They speak what they are told to speak and hear only what is spoken by the village master.  They cannot think; they cannot fathom.  Nor can they discern.

Oh, they seem normal enough.  They wear nice clothes, they drive nice cars, they live in houses, work in business.  But when someone touches them, they don’t feel that touch; when someone speaks to them, they stare blankly, their eyebrows crinkling in confusion.  Every skill and sense is inured and deadened, and even their ability to reason has atrophied.

She lives in a village of the damned.  The people there can’t see or hear.  They cannot fathom.  She studies them, permission granted by the village master.  She writes exactly what they do and say — nothing.  She, too, is damned.

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