you see something in me that no one else does.

really? what is that?

shouldn’t you know that?

yeah, i suppose. i see . . . i see virtue from a pure heart; i see beauty that does not need to be most important; i see love that is very sacrificial; i see tenderness that is strong. i also see either a need or a want to be loved and cared for and to be protected.

i think it is both a need and a want.

‘i want to die.’

‘why?’

‘what is the prerequisite to death?’

‘life?’

. . .

‘that doesn’t make any sense.’

‘what is the prerequisite to death?’

‘life.’

‘so what do i have to do before i die?’

‘live.’

. . .

‘so life is the prerequisite to death and death is the prerequisite to life.’

what would life be like if we tried to act as something which we are not? i mean, why must we attempt to be something more than human? God created us as human and though we aspire to so much more, we are yet, at the moment, human. and therefore we must be human – which carries with it all human joys and sorrows and though we would like to escape this, it is not yet in our ability, which is one of the reasons that i commit neither of the extremes with you: in other words you are beneath me and i will use you or you are above me and i will worship you. neither of these is a true human relationship and hence the phrase ‘ah, the humanity’

‘it is unhuman to resist temptation.’

‘is it? or is it fully human to resist?’

‘that, my dear, is contingent upon the definition of human.’