More Than Human

must die when the idiot died, but it contained no motivation to delay that event by one second.

She confessed it and he punished her body until she wished she had never owned one.

A spleen, a kidney, an adrenal—these have definite functions and an optimum level for those functions.

It took what it took and gave out nothing.

Like a stone in a peach, a yolk in an egg, he carried another thing.

Radiations of fear, tense fields of awareness, discontent.

killed like an animal, without hate and without joy. He ate like an animal, everything edible he could find, and he ate (when he could) only enough and nevermore.

He had exactly enough fear to keep his bones together and oiled.

Men turned away from him, women would not look, children stopped and watched him.

The idiot never knew why, and never wondered. He did not beg.