11/02/2026 23:54

---

They'll pick someone else. He disappears. They were trying to snuggle into the cast-off shell of twenty years back, each of them. I bought a book on the subject and I've been studying it.

I want, I said, grabbing him for a change. I knew it the minute I said it. It did all right. What keeps them at peace now is that neither of two nearly equal sides dares take the responsibility of starting a war.