[Copied exactly into Renji's journal.]

壊れてなったと思うぜ。

[handwriting very shaky]

She knows. Was told. I just have to keep going. Somehow. I will.

Nothing happened. Nothing. Nothing to speak of. Nothing.

This scrap of paper from the bulletin board, stuck between the pages.

DOST deem him weak that owns his strength is tried?
Nay, we may safely lean on him that grieves:
The pine has immemorially sighed,
The enduring poplar’s are the trembling leaves.

To feel, and bow the head, is not to fear;
To cheat with jest—that is the coward’s art:
Beware the laugh that battles back the tear;
He ’s false to all that ’s traitor to his heart.

He of great deeds does grope amid the throng
Like him whose steps toward Dagon’s temple bore;
There ’s ever something sad about the strong—
A look, a moan, like that on ocean’s shore.

-JV Cheney


It isn't so simple.

ダメだ。

止めろ

Walt Whitman today:

By the bivouac's fitful flame
A procession winding around me, solemn and sweet and slow--but first I note,
The tents of the sleeping army, the fields' and the woods' dim outline,
The darkness lit by spots of kindled fire, the silence,
Like a phantom far or near an occasional figure moving,
The shrubs and trees (as I lift my eyes they seem to be stealthily watching me),
While wind in procession thoughts, O tender and wondrous thoughts,
Of life and death, of home and the past an loved, and of those that are far away;
A solemn and slow procession there as I it on the ground,
By the bivouac's fitful flame.


----

I think my goddamn head is going to explode.
Got Sheska and Suou. That'll be interesting. River may stop in. One to go.
Ichimaru's getting bold with Ran.
And the fuck is the Captain's problem, anyway?
Need to see Rukia tonight. Maybe No, too busy.

今日は思いがけない一日だったな。でも、なんとなくよかったと思うんだ。

[Below is a quick and neat sketch of the map of the second floor, from what Namine gave Artemis, and what Renji himself knows.]




ここを抜け出す理由が増えてしまったみたい。

俺は一体何考えてんだだよ？もう、ダメだ。


Copied from the bulletin board before I erased it:

You're making this difficult. I know you're not trying to, but you are.

I didn't want to get into this here, but maybe it's better if I have to think about what I say before I say it.

I told you the other day that I needed time to think, and that I didn't know how I felt. You were okay with that, I think. Then I tried to get you to stop blaming yourself for what happened back home, and I told you what happened with my brother. You were not okay with all of that. I guess I went about it the wrong way, or maybe in the wrong order. But I don't know any other way.

And it's not your fault. Not this, anyway. We were both at fault, maybe, forty years ago. But when I found you in the woods a few months ago, reading, that was my fault. See, I can admit when I'm wrong, sometimes. I bet you thought you'd never see the day, huh?

Anyway, I was wrong then. I've got a lot of fixing to do.

I'll tread softly if you do the same.



...I don't get it. What does this mean? It can't...

I had this figured out and understood. I had a plan. Now I'm just confused.

Women make everything complicated. And I don't have time to deal with this. I have too much to do.

No man is an island, entire of itself; every
man is a piece of the continent, a part of the
main. If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory
were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or
of thine own were: any man's death diminishes
me, because I am involved in mankind, and
therefore never send to know for whom the bells
tolls; it tolls for thee.

- John Donne

お前に俺の夢をあずけたけど、お前は欲しくなかった。俺は、それしかあげる事はない。