A Chronical of Life and Death
V
After that, Christall was much more careful in the way in which she dealt with the Poor Souls. She made sure the familiar life she had found was always well hidden when her clients came to her. And she redoubled her salesmanship. The only problem was, she found she could hardly make any sense of the lives at all any more. They were growing ever more clouded to her, and she was reduced to spectacular bouts of lying when questioned on any aspect of them. Then again, she got rather good at this, and soon began to find it easier, she thought, to invent something from scratch than it was to undergo the restrictions placed on her by mere embellishment.
She pondered the irritating Poor Soul which had had the rare nerve to test her patience; but no more like it appeared, and gradually he began to forget about this strange occurrence.
Also, she was increasingly obsessed with the familiar life. She found that she could not go long without the desire to look at it growing quite sharp. But now when she looked into this life, there was virtually nothing in it at all that she could understand, although she became more and more convinced that she was recognising elements contained within. Almost everything in the life now seemed at once achingly familiar and nauseatingly arcane.
This life became both her torture and her salve; and her existence, which was technically infinite, collapsed inwards and wrapped itself in knots around the two of them, this familiar life and her.
And it was while she was in this strange state of mind that a most singular thing happened.
One of her clients came back.
It was unsatisfied.
She pondered the irritating Poor Soul which had had the rare nerve to test her patience; but no more like it appeared, and gradually he began to forget about this strange occurrence.
Also, she was increasingly obsessed with the familiar life. She found that she could not go long without the desire to look at it growing quite sharp. But now when she looked into this life, there was virtually nothing in it at all that she could understand, although she became more and more convinced that she was recognising elements contained within. Almost everything in the life now seemed at once achingly familiar and nauseatingly arcane.
This life became both her torture and her salve; and her existence, which was technically infinite, collapsed inwards and wrapped itself in knots around the two of them, this familiar life and her.
And it was while she was in this strange state of mind that a most singular thing happened.
One of her clients came back.
It was unsatisfied.