“Your jokes don't make me laugh.”

“- Yes, yes, I know for the reason that I'm a supernatural entity; Pheel, Pheel. I am pregnant with the life of a new being inside me and it is a marvellous thing. Everything is different; everything is new; everything is changed. This being that will be with us soon; I feel it soon - I feel a flood of growth, a maturation. I can feel velocity. I can feel... you understand that in fact this is good for you. You are the father of... why understate... anything; not your style or mine... you're the father of the messiah, Pheel Cazzo, and every prophecy, every premonition, every new thing; will be here and also you're talking about personal power and prestige; You understand, nothing like this in 500,000...”

The central dilemma, in some ways, “...years,” of Pheel Cazzo's life was the question, or certainly the feeling, certainly the sense, that it was possible that beings who were demonstrably and verifiably supernatural with powers, that was, of prophecy and sorcery beyond imaginings most wild - could be - the most fevered; the most sick actually; those who could summon help mates drooling sanguine and bleeding acid from eyeballs that... that did all the things in that moment required of such a being - beings that could do stuff demonstrable and you know you could prove them: prophesied events that had actually occurred in exactly the fashion and manner previously specified - these same; these same; they could be, and this was the dilemma, the supernatural beings, they could also be - could they? - the central dilemma, it was a question - completely and irretrievably – beyond all scope of description or repair; in every possible sense, could they be - were they often in fact, necessary that they were or merely just could be to paraphrase, in fact, completely insane? This was a question. Could they be? Could they be completely insane?

None of these things, or all of these things, officially, or in fact just really, but - Pheel had a premonition of doom.

Throw in a pretty face and he was doomed.

“Leaving aside,” Pheel rested his face on his desk again and then lifted it, “that matter -”

“The matter of the queint?” Her hand rested directly beneath and between her breasts, which was the location of the queint: the polite term, employed, if ever, rarely.

“Leaving aside the quaint matter of the queint, yes, you are entirely aware, in fact all too aware, in fact, to clarify, let's clarify, I'd like to clarify - can we clarify that I am incapable of thought right now because you drained most - by far most - of the blood out of my body that I needed for the production of thoughts that are the thing without which this entire edifice crumbles... I have responsibilities... and a medical compulsion to perorate extensively upon my personal problems, my very personal ones, biological ones, without which peroration this edifice crumbles - to you; the peroration; then transmuted into, you know, whatever - art - of course...,” he ran out, “I have no blood.”

“You have no blood – but what did you see?”

That was the reason he'd said he'd wanted that. To embark on his own quest through a cave complex of organs. It was true that there had been visions, and this had been his stated goal, to experience these visions; this was the reason for which he'd done it. Not suicide. Or faith in his own talent. But certainly not, mainly not suicide. If it was suicide this would entail his having to. Acknowledge that and. There would be consequences for his mental well-being. Because he'd needed visions; because everything, every story, every narrative, every new combination of events, of heroic events, in which there was a story, in which there was a story with a hero who who followed a course, through, the course he plotted through, this series of events - it was completely worn out, overworked, dilapidated, drained of all juice, resources, memory, life, functioning - any sort of growth of any kind of... there was nothing there, anymore.