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public
servants.”
    Ha! There is but one servant involved in
this, and he is about as noble as an affluent prostitute. Tell me,
Mr. Grimes, is it a crime to speak the truth? Are the governor and
the mayor immune from criticism? You can threaten me with silly
lawsuits and attempt to silence me, but the perceptive pen of Peter
Willows will not be set aside. Your efforts have backfired. You
have succeeded only in inspiring me.
    ~
    The underground girl eludes me still. I
cannot see into her room during the day, for the light casts a
glare on her windows; and at night, all is darkness—she has gone
somewhere else.
    I haven’t been able to write, haven’t been
able to think. Yesterday I walked to the university and wandered
around the library until my feet became sore. Ashley never
appeared.
    That grimy lawyer has clouded my
consciousness with his absurd allegations. If he were of any
significance I would direct my next essay at him. But the briefest
thought of him is nauseating; he is like a rotten odor, or a
disgusting taste in my mouth. I want to spit him out, to expel him,
to purge myself of his filthy presence. Libel! How ridiculous!
    I fear for our race, for our age, and
especially for the thinkers among us, if it is now considered
illegal to tell the truth.
    ~
    I haven’t spent much time in my apartment
these past few days. It makes me feel like an animal in a cage, a
prisoner behind bars. No, at times like these I need the openness
of the outdoors, the freedom of nature. But the world, always
intent on my demise, has made other plans. The weather is horrible,
the rain and wind so relentless that no sooner do I venture outside
than I have to seek shelter. So I’ve passed the days in bookstores
and coffee shops, movie theaters and shopping malls. The lovely
outdoors indeed.
    A small pile of mail has accumulated in my
box, but I refuse to open a single letter. I noticed in the
classifieds an elegant one-bedroom apartment near Westover Park.
Perhaps I’ll go and take a look at it if the weather improves. I
have to do something, for I feel entirely out of place—out of time,
even. This world is not for me. I long for another age, be it in
the past or in the future. I deserve a different century.
    ~
    However entertaining a diary may be to write,
it is an outright embarrassment to read. I’ve just flipped through
a few pages of this notebook and had the overwhelming urge to tear
them to pieces, to erase all evidence of these reflective efforts
of mine.
    ~
    Through the windows, a golden view of the
underground girl’s life. Clothes strewn about the room. Drawers
emptied, closets cleared. And the girl, such a lovely little thing,
sitting with her legs crossed on the floor.
    Every few minutes she stood up and
disappeared. When she returned to her seat, limbs folded like a
child’s, she was wearing different clothes. I hid in the alleyway,
against the gate, gripping its soggy wooden spires to steady
myself. She stood up, shifted, pirouetted in and out of focus. She
stepped off stage for a moment, only to return for the most
perfect, precious pose. And there she is still, in my mind, between
the window frame, the picture frame, a photograph I will never
forget.
    ~
    Every lonely soul knows that it is society,
not solitude, that makes our condition so difficult to bear. We
feel far more lonesome among other people than we do by ourselves.
But we are born into an overcrowded world, into a life that is
fundamentally opposed to our personalities. And to make this all
worse, we are told that it is our fault,
that we are to blame, that we need to adjust ourselves, to adapt, to be
normal.
    But why should the shepherd listen to the
sheep? He shouldn’t—and I don’t. But neither do I speak, for it
would be futile: the calm and steady voice of the shepherd isn’t
heard among the bleating of the sheep. I retreat into silence, into
that realm in which I have always felt most comfortable. I continue
my existence in this world of ours,