A lot of my childhood playmates ended up behind bars and I don’t mean as bartenders. - Fredric Brown

"You were right, Crag," spoke the voice in his mind.
Crag wondered what he'd been right about.
"About the corruptness of the race to which you belong. It is even worse than you thought of it as being. I have been inside many minds. They are weak minds, almost without exception morally weak."
Crag grinned. He thought, "I'm no lily myself."
"You are a criminal because you are a rebel against a society that has no place for strong men. In a society that is good, the weak are criminals; in a society that is bad, there is no place for a strong man except as a criminal. You are better than they, Crag. You have killed men, but you have killed them fairly. Your society kills them corruptly, by inches. Worse, those who are being killed acquiesce, not only because they are weak, but because they, too, hope to get on the exploiting side."
"You make the human race sound pretty bad."
"It is bad. This is period of decadence. It has been better and will be better again. I have studied your history and find that there were similar periods before and humanity has struggled out of them. It will again, Crag."

The cat didn’t answer, except possibly by not answering.

I sought her in the grayness and she wasn’t there, she was dead and she wasn’t there, she wouldn’t be there ever again and I could never find comfort in her again. Ellen, beloved, you are dead and your voice is in my mind and only in my mind.