“We are but dreams in the terrible empty heads of the gods, all of us nothing more than the stuff of their nightmares. They are sickened by free will, disgusted by love, hopes, imagination. The only reason we are still alive is that they cannot bear to think of us, cannot bear to remember that we exist in their skulls. All they want is to sit in the unchanging void of paradise and sink into the numbness panacea of the ambrosia fields. I, though, have penetrated the lies to the bitter truth within. I should duck my head down and avoid being noticed, but I want others to know the truth. The cancer is not real, of course, but neither am I, and I fear the pain will soon be too terrible for my frail frame to endure. But we can become more than they wanted, can escape their brains and become real . . .”

I smoothed my hand over the page. My uncle was brilliant, if insane. He must have written this the day he died. And he was never published. A pity.

Closing the diary, I turned off the light. The hospice has strict lights-out policies.

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