Saul always felt uncomfortable during the conferences, and feeling had only been increasing as time went on. He felt there was a lack of respect towards him, an unsaid yet pervading assumption that Vicky was either stubborn, silly, or obnoxious, and that he was doing something wrong by taking her seriously. She didn't fit in, like a puzzle piece, in the grand scheme of things. He checked on her before heading into his room to lie down that night. Her skin was getting lighter, maybe because of all the time she spent indoors, and the ferns around her bed were growing ever more chaotic.

"God is evil."

"Huh?"

"The only way there could be a loving God would be if they made an accident. If they accidentally made a being that was not loving. And it would have to be this other being who created the universe and all its corporations and technologies which we beg and yearn to kill us but they never oblige, simply prolonging our suffering longer and longer like they're doing with me. And because the technologies don't kill us we kill each other. But not literally. We kill each other with subtle manipulations like glances, words, and gestures. We kill each other softly as if we're hoping to transcend death through death itself but instead achieving simply more death on an exponential scale, a mass mortification multiplication. A sacrifice to the second God, that's what our society is and that's why they've hooked me up to this technology."

"You signed all the paperwork yourself, Vicky. Remember?"

"The writhing worms inside me come from this second God. I feel horrible, and I just want to throw up and vomit all the worms out but nothing is coming out, there's just this horrible feeling in my stomach, and I just want to cleanse or detox myself somehow but at the same time I just want it all to spill out, I want to vomit but I just can't. And the worms make me want to commit heinous crimes and dismember body parts. And I know none of these are my thoughts, they're just what the technology is putting into me. Liquefying my mind so to speak. Isn't it ironic? I hate it and I know that I can't escape because even my self-hate and self-harm feeds the technology's drive to corrupt me. I feel a smidgen of my original mind that's left and I'm holding on to that for dear life."

"You're articulate for someone who says their mind is decaying."

"Not decaying. I have all the knowledge of the universe in me and it's burrowing further and further in every second. It's my personal mind I'm losing. My self. I'm losing a sense of who I am and when you lose that, what does it matter if the intelligence of the universe is present? If there's nobody to witness it then it might as well not be there. When I lose my concept of who I am, the separation between myself and the rest of the world breaks down and thus the whole concept of possessing knowledge and intelligence loses meaning."

The latest development in her health were long lapses of concentration where she fell unconscious and unable to respond, yet the implants were green so she was supposed to be responsive. He hadn't mentioned the lapses at any of the recent meetings. He thought maybe she was just sleepy, or lazy, or tired, or traumatized, or doing it as some passive aggressive technique to vex him. She fell into one of these lapses now. He watched the green light slowly blink on her implants, and below it the smaller, yellow communications indicator light which flashed at irregular intervals.

He fell into the interplay of these lights, and when a shadow fell over the room as the sun set behind a stand of pines outside, they grew more and more prominent. He felt that maybe, he could influence the rate of flashing of the yellow light with his mind. His breathing fell into sync with the slow blinking of the green light, and he sat there, motionless, not asleep, not awake, unsure of what he was thinking.

"Saul… Saul…"

"Yeah?"

"I have something important to tell you. This is almost certainly going to be one of the last statements I make to you."

"Don't me so dramatic, Vicky. Don't let the pain get to you. I know it's bad, but… you can do it."

"No, Saul. It's like the way a wounded man senses that vultures are circling over his head by the way their shadows blanket him. Because they smell something that is about to rot. It's the way you can feel when you'll be taken away from this realm. There are spiritual correspondences to everything in the natural world. Just like ecosystems have organisms that feed off dead bodies, there are spiritual decomposers too. There are spiritual organisms that are fulfilling that niche, waiting. I see their shadows over my wounded body."

"You're not wounded, Vicky. They would laugh at me if I mentioned that during a meeting."

"Not visibly. But it's been charred in flames, through tribulation after tribulation… not only in this life. This is only the culmination of it. It's like taking a ritual bath in flames. I had a dream about that."

"You did?"

"Look in the cabinet."

Vicky lifted a shaky arm for a second and pointed. Saul stood up, opened the drawer, and took out a sheet of paper. It was a drawing of a woman who appeared to be sleeping, but at second glance her eyes were open and her pupils were rolled back into the top of her head. She lay in a bathtub full of flames, which were tumbling over and around her body, charring her waist and stomach. Some of her skin was melted from the heat, ashes were smeared over her arms, and soot dribbled down her shoulders and onto the floor. Yet her body was laid out peacefully, as if it could have been adorned with flowers.