Prologue
It is too empty in here. Too cold. Too hollow.
They sit in the next room—tired, wired and scared. One talks, one grunts, one cries and the other is silent. I wish they were all more like the silent one. The sounds the loud ones make grate on me. To say it is like having an itch one can't scratch is inaccurate, but how else could I describe it so you would understand? I wouldn't know, would I? I'm not like you.
It's getting close to the end now, so I will not have to listen to them soon. I can depart this place. I can leave the only half-interesting person here to her ascent. I can return home to plead against being sent out on similar jobs to be denied again. Soon after, I'll find another festering stink hole full of fervent, sweaty, hypocritical believers and I will sell it again.
Just think of me as a sort of traveling salesman—lonely, overworked and archaic.
