I cannot; yet I must. How do you calculate that?
At what point on the graph do ‘must’ and ‘cannot’ meet?
—Ro-Man, The Robot Monster

Seven years of cover so deep it has almost forgotten that there is something other than the cover. Seven years of numbers stations and dead drop reports. Seven years of church meetings and parent teacher associations and having opinions on politics and baseball. It has a name here, strange thought. A name, a face, an individuality. A history. It has always had a past, but not before a history.

it is lonely
15-25-2-10
26-12
1-14-26-18
22-6
22-6-14-15-18-25-14
it lonely is

Everything is relative, here. They are always arguing, disputing, disagreeing. This happened, that did not. Let’s look at the tape. Evidence means little, since they falsify and create new facts, new histories all the time. Who it is today is not who it was yesterday, except by consensus. It is standing by the ocean, waves swallowing sand from beneath its feet; rooting itself in this shifting terrain, it has had to define its own solidity.

is it lonely
15-25-2-10
7-21-18-12
14-5-18
24-22-25-25-22-1-20
26-18
is lonely it

How seductive they are, in all their variation. How kind, how cruel, how red in tooth and heavy of jaw. It apes their ways, but does not let itself understand them. Certainties must be fought for, here. It makes its observations, and sends its reports, and prays—horrible thought!—that soon they will call it home. Prays that home exists. That it exists. That it is not this gross flesh, this dull clay, but the electric cry it but dimly remembers.

lonely is it
15-25-2-10
15-5-22-1-20
26-18
21-2-26-18
15-5-22-1-20
26-18 21-2-26-18
lonely it is