just know that it takes a bit of courage to unlearn that shame, and to be there for others when they try to unlearn that shame, and that it all gets … - Hugh Howey

the fires are not urgent. They move at a crawl, and the gray smoke drifts lazily into the cloudless sky, and I can’t imagine that anyone is hurt. They will get away. They will get away. There are sirens coming, and this is just some thing to gawk at.

If he checks the colreg logs, he’ll see that I’m not exactly lying. I am under quarantine. What the logs won’t say is that it was a computer virus, and that the victim was my beacon. Strange the lengths I’ll go to in order to keep people away from me, considering how lonely I feel most of the time. I guess that’s the strange torment I suffer: dying for company, for someone to talk to, but it’s never the right someone who shows. And an unwelcome presence is far worse than miserable silence.

Explain to them that these people are not evil, which we might understand and combat. Explain to them that these people do not care and cannot be made to, which is far worse.