I went out.

If I could bulge my eyes, stretching them until the optic nerve went straight and taught—

Slip a knife in back there and slit them. Let them roll off the palm of my hand into the dirt. Let them shrivel there in the dust, until all their color bled out over the ground. Pick them up, pop them back in. The nerve would repair in time. Everything would. The eyes would be dust. My head was already stone—my brain the center of it, pumping dust into every corner of my body. Turing my veins into desert-dry halls empty of any life.

I went out.

I would take them back. Forgive them.

All of these things can be replaced. Eyes, lungs, hearts, minds. Every part can be upgraded. Every part can be swapped out. Nothing is yours—nothing was mine.

It was pondered: how many objects must one renew before the body is different?

How much of myself did I have to rip out—with my hands, with claws and teeth if I needed them, with kitchen knives and cold-chisels—before I could say I was changed?

How much could I simply live without?

I didn’t need eyes. I had nothing to see.

I didn’t need a mouth. I had nothing to say.

I didn’t need lungs. I had no need to breathe.

One by one I could trim these down. It was more efficient that way. Fewer places to be harmed. Fewer things to exploit.

I didn’t need a mind. I had nothing to control.

I went out.

Out there was a world bright and full of life and wonders that I could lose myself to—places and people I could donate my all. My feet to the grass. My lungs to the air by the lake. My soul to the winter sky.

So much to give!

I could take all these things—all these gifts I was left with—and I could leave them. Distribute them among the parties most in need.

Out there was a world full of the needy and the destitute and the desperate and the lost. I was one of them. I was out there, and I was in here. Out there were those who could not help themselves; in here were the people who chose who to help and who to kill.

Who decided? We did. What authority did we have? It was self-appointed. Those out there had no idea that our whims decided their lives.

Out there were the innocent people who could not ever fathom the truth—that there was no truth at all.

I went out.

I had nothing to say. I’d given my mouth away to the coughing factories.

I had nothing to think. I left my mind with the corpse in the alley, head in three pieces, blood strewn in an arc across the pavement like a star through the sky—in a skeletal pattern like a tree of life.

I had nothing to feel. I left my soul in the furnace beneath our home. I was told it would be fuel-efficient to use it, and since there was nothing left in the world to power it, I had to give. I was okay with giving. All I had done in my life was have things taken. Just once I wanted to give. So I did it. I didn’t mind giving it away. I barely missed it when it was gone. I shook hands with it, standing in front of the great furnace in the basement, and we exchanged pleasantries for a moment, and then I said it was time to say goodbye, and we parted ways amicably, with no hard feelings at all, and then it climbed into the furnace, and I watched it do so with the grace of a prime deer, elegant and shimmering in the light of the red sky, and it closed that door, but it couldn’t shut it all the way—it needed me to push that last bit closed, to close the latch, and I did so enthusiastically, because I was so ready to give, and all I wanted to do was give, because every part of me yearned to give, and every part of me yearned to be given away, and this was the last piece in ensuring I could live on forever and ever in some form or another, and once that door was closed I watched through the grate as my soul melted, smiling all the while, a little quiet smile of understanding and peace, and it did not scream as its face sloughed off like acid on flesh, like ice cream on a summer day, dripping down like wax, like molten steel, hot and glowing and bright—so bright I could scarcely stand to look at it—and even though it was blinding I could not look away, and even though it made my whole world white and empty I could not move, because without that there was nothing left—no eyes to see, no mouth to speak, no lungs to scream, no hands to take, no feet to move, no heart to feel, no mind to think, no soul to search.

For all my life I’d craved the world I was given—and for all this time it was good.

And it was still good. It was still good.

I had to show my gratitude. This world was powered and run on souls like mine. Each person before me had come to this furnace and given what was theirs to give—the only thing, in some cases. After everything else had been taken—the only things left to give were those that had to be cut away, hacked off, sliced out—with scalpels and knives and plucked out with tweezers.

Every part of me.

I went out.

There was no alternative. At each point in my life, I had to pay a toll. When I was a stone, the tolls were simple—a bit of mind here, a bit of soul there, a bit and a bit and a bit. Until what was there was gnawed and chipped. But it was a soul, so it was good, and when I finally thawed out, when I finally softened, I could reshape it back into something I could be proud of.

But there would be a toll. I was coming to it. I knew it was coming. I knew there was no way to avoid it.

The toll came for me.

And so I gave. Everything I had lovingly crafted, I gave freely, in hopes that the toll would be paid.

But it was not enough. Nothing was enough.

Nothing but that which I had repaired would do. That which had developed freely was worthless. My eyes. My lungs. They meant nothing. They were worthless.

What mattered was only what I had taken and shaped with my bare hands—what I had tempered in fires beyond life, what I had fed with light and words, what I had nurtured from a shattered state into something worthy.

Only that would do.

So I put my soul in the furnace, and I did so gladly, because I was alive and the toll was a part of life, and because I knew it was coming.

I gave the furnace my soul.

It accepted me and it promised what was left that it would burn bright for years and years.

And I turned to leave.

I went out.

I went to leave.

I wanted to leave.

I was told I could leave.

I was told that leaving was an option after one had given their soul to the furnace.

I was promised that I could leave.

It was foretold that I would leave.

I needed to leave.

I craved the ability to leave.

I held the ability to leave in the highest regard, because leaving was the truth all beings could ascribe to.

But I could not leave.

I was not allowed to leave.

I was told I could not leave.

I was commanded to stay.

It was required that I stay.

I was told that I would be rewarded if I stayed.

I was told that if I stayed, the world would be thankful.

I was told that staying was honorable.

I was lied to.

I was told that staying was the true way. That all flesh craved staying.

I was lied to.

It was said to me that everyone wanted me to stay.

I was lied to.

I tried to go out.

I went to leave.

I was not allowed.

I craved leaving.

I was not allowed.

I was lied to.

I was told that leaving was the truth.

I was told that leaving was the way of all flesh.

I was lied to.

I was told that staying was the ultimate aspiration of all flesh.

I was told that staying was the truth.

I was lied to.

Lies were laid upon the shell. Draped over my head and shoulders like wreaths—my head with no eyes, with no mouth, my body with no lungs to breath, with no heart to feel, with dust swirling through my empty veins.

It was foretold that I would leave.

I went out.

I wanted out.

I craved out.

But I was not allowed.

The cavity of my heart echoed dully in my chest. My ribs protecting a deep vacancy. My skin stretched over bones and dust.

I was not allowed to go out.

I was told that I had done well.

That my soul was going to power the furnace forever and ever.

And in exchange, I could have my eyes back. I could take back my lungs. My heart. My mind.

All but the soul, tattered just a few years ago, that I had painstakingly repaired every day of my life with a little bit of clay, with light and words.

I was told I could have it all back.

Everything but the soul.

But I could go down, deep down into the heart of the factory, and I could see all the good my soul was doing for the world.

The fire my soul kept burning bright.

And if I squinted, even fifteen years later, I could still make out the face of it—and if I let my mind’s eye run wild, I could almost still see the quiet smile, the understanding smile—the unapologetic, the knowing, the feeling. It knew why I did what I did. It knew I had no choice.

It knew I was who I was because I was.

I was promised everything if I stayed.

I wanted to leave.

I craved leaving.

But I stayed.

Bell took my shoulder.

She looked in my empty eyes.

She told me to come home.

And I did.