[He can offer no significant recourse. No argument with any true weight. But he can offer the cold word, thrown with all of his distaste for an action that should not have been taken but cannot be...
He had forgotten.
He had forgotten what it felt like, to have his actions hold a sort of permanence. For them to not be easily ERASED, wiped from existence. Even his slate was not cleaned very well, was it? Cleaning a slate always leaves a shadow of what was written before, a patina of shaded chalk dust clinging to the backdrop of matte black-green.]
THERE WAS NOTHING TO LEFT SAY. WHAT I HAVE SAID THUS FAR IS SUFFICIENT.
[It is not. Clearly it is not, for she is still here, still talking to him, and he could have pressed onward but he did not and no matter how he interrogates his processes and runs queries and executes algorithm after empty algorithm, his own motivations remain...unclear to him.
Why.
Why.
Sentiment?
No. He does not endure sentiment. He loathes sentiment.
IT'S NOT A PHASE IT'S WHO HE IS
[He can offer no significant recourse. No argument with any true weight. But he can offer the cold word, thrown with all of his distaste for an action that should not have been taken but cannot be...
He had forgotten.
He had forgotten what it felt like, to have his actions hold a sort of permanence. For them to not be easily ERASED, wiped from existence. Even his slate was not cleaned very well, was it? Cleaning a slate always leaves a shadow of what was written before, a patina of shaded chalk dust clinging to the backdrop of matte black-green.]
THERE WAS NOTHING TO LEFT SAY. WHAT I HAVE SAID THUS FAR IS SUFFICIENT.
[It is not. Clearly it is not, for she is still here, still talking to him, and he could have pressed onward but he did not and no matter how he interrogates his processes and runs queries and executes algorithm after empty algorithm, his own motivations remain...unclear to him.
Why.
Why.
Sentiment?
No. He does not endure sentiment. He loathes sentiment.
What, then? What, then?]