I can see that it was one small thought among all the other thoughts that drift like dust motes through a cluttered mind. But it was a thought I made an object, and held on to and turned over and over in my hand, as if it were an amulet, as if it gave meaning to what had come before; and holding on to it changed everything again.

The relief of nothing to say. I'd always prized silence for being the absence of other noises. In this house I come to see how one can prize silence for being articulate, as well.

Prisoner? The world is large. You're only a prisoner of your own fears. If you don't like it in the prison of your fears, go somewhere else. Or stay there if you need to. But don't blame me. You obviously expect me to be your solution, as if I were an arcane number of some sort by which you were neatly divisible. Why do you think anybody could be that for you? Why do you think anybody could be that for anybody?