The plants rule me. I have given myself entirely to their desires. Their little faces look at me full of need, begging me to feed them. But I can't feed them. I spent the last of the money two weeks ago on a lighter to burn my records, because it was all I could offer to feed my plants, and the ash itself is almost exhausted now. Here, far from the sun, far even from the memory of it, the day has slowed to a crawl. There is nothing I could really call a day. My clock battery is almost exhausted, and when it is gone I won't have any way of telling so much as the hour, let alone whether it is before or after noon. Once the clock stops moving I will finally have to admit there is no such thing as motion or hope. There will be just me and the plants, and they have long since stopped growing. Once upon a time I had a memory of a sound so pure it could strip away the rust from what I used to call life. Now, if I think for a long time, I call still remember words, but the voice eludes me like a coquette, slipping away into the recesses of carbon dioxide even my plants are now choking on. This voice, if there is such a thing, used to say, "death came calling today. I heard the gentle grace of its cadences. I couldn't say no." I think maybe this voice was God. I think maybe . . . yes, maybe if I strain . . . I can hear . . .