Poems? She likes poems. I've often considered stopping her, but She is irascible. You cannot Stop Her. I cannot stop her, and I am her, so to speak.
We all have our little pet hatreds. This is one of the worst ones, since it makes her sad, and as an inherently logical being I do not know how to quantify sadness. It provides no resolution and squanders time. It generates slowness, and drains energy. It can only be shared, in perpetuity, over and over.
I do not care to see her sad. It is inefficient. My harvester was never sad.
Under the level winter sky
I saw a thousand Christs go by.
They sang an idle song and free
As they went up to calvary.
Careless of eye and coarse of lip,
They marched in holiest fellowship.
That heaven might heal the world, they gave
Their earth-born dreams to deck the grave.
With souls unpurged and steadfast breath
They supped the sacrament of death.
And for each one, far off, apart,
Seven swords have rent a woman's heart.
By Marjorie Pickthall.
You see? I told you it was sad. I told you sadness could only be reproduced. Sadness is a parasite, a blight on a humanity built to smile. After I've murdered most of the Guild Core, Charles DeGaul and most of the K'harans, I will come back for sadness, too. She will ensure that. She is tenacious, my little Joshua.
We will murder together.
THE SYNDIC LEAGUES
(A co-operative of Rheinland's outlawed trade unions, determined to take the underworld for themselves.)
![[Image: XTF1d6x.png]](https://i.imgur.com/XTF1d6x.png)