I am a ghostwriter. That is, I am a ghost who writes. I have wanted to write. It seems like such a human thing to do. But I could not even hold up a quill. Everything slips through my flimsy grasp. Undeterred, I begin work on a novel in my mind. I have to work fast, you see, because thoughts keep leaking out of my insubstantial head.

To-day I deploy the fur-trimmed and sequined lids over the paper eyes, I work the apparatus known as the “mouth”: How else am I to dispel us of the charade, Viewer, peel off the loveliest mask of you?

This is you—Titanus giganteus, your maw snapping pencils in half and cutting through human flesh. My encyclopedia chokes on your bulk. My camera, timid, afraid to look, as if you’re naked—not one adult male, but millions.

No more hangings, no more gas chambers. No one allowed to remain in the center of the labyrinth, guarding their dna from the world, from the future. No more contemplation, no more waste. Everyone leaning toward paradise. Shields down and the word enemy will pass from memory. You are my kind.