Sleep Without Dreams

Father, I have lost track of days. The sun rises and sets at an unfamiliar pace.

I have not been visited by the author of yesterday's Telegram, whether she be named Bellatrix Bracken or be some other being. I have wished for it to be true, but I confess I spared merely half a wish. In my room before dawn, I allowed myself to entertain such a notion, though not wholeheartedly, no. That there was such a woman, and, by whatever "method," she might shatter the gates of Hades — and I would not "interfere" in her congress with spirits and shades. I imagined her Fay, perhaps, or more likely some sorcerer or alchemist, such as that coward Lucius Sin. I imagined, then, some invisible college of such men and women, weighing events, setting to balance the scales. I imagined justice done. Aided by the absinthe, I let my fancy run on this way until the northeastern sky begin to burn with day. And in that new light, my half wishes burned away like mist.

I would only have her alive again, and have my mind restored. Have I gone beyond recall? How does a woman trained to live a life of cold rationality and empirical inquiry objectively deem herself insane? Do madwomen ask themselves these questions? I begin to doubt I can distinguish my sorrow from my fear from my drunkeness from any real or imagined unhinging of my faculties.

Word has reached New Babbage that some civil unrest has spread in Caledon. I know not the detail nor even if these tales are true. Only whispers overheard from my balcony.