GRSTALT4 (versions of earlier failures)

I have to overcome the involuntary twitching of my hands and shaking of my legs. A reminder of what it took to get here. Not having a Device in my room has helped my focus, though Tony in the next room provides a constant distraction. He was an agent provocateur in the peace movement, until his nerve failed him. He screams in his sleep.

 “No blood for oil! Human need not military greed! Whose streets? Our Streets!”

 I have a terrific view from my window. This morning I woke to see a ridge of dark cloud forming on the horizon, splitting the sky in two, a prelude to a storm that pounded the quayside. One morning I saw the sun and moon sharing the sky. In the hours when writing is too dangerous, I sit and watch the passage of the boats. My requests for books are ignored.

 “Leave her alone, you fucking pig, you fucking Fascist pig!”

The night shift is led by a man who calls himself Casey, though this is clearly a name designed to placate those residents who baulk at the idea of being supervised by someone with a vowel at the end of their surname. Casey brings me pens and paper and saves the manuscript for me. He promises to get it to someone who can help. I have to believe in the benevolence of his gesture. He encouraged me to start doing this. He may be entrapping me. He may try to blackmail me, but I have nothing. I have no idea if anyone is reading this, or if it is being handed to the steering committee as evidence against me. But what else can I do? I have to hope for the best.

This is my final assignment. I'd been waiting for the perfect convergence of story and opportunity, compromising everything I'd been until I could be discounted. They think they have the only copy. They assume it's been beaten out of me. But I paid attention when it mattered.

 “Don’t move her! Don’t move her! Can anybody tell me which way is out?”

The dinner bell woke me and I looked around the room in confusion for a moment. These journeys are terrifying, but console yourself with the knowledge that you never have to make them again. We are all falling with such rapidity that things assume the impression of stability. As everything slows, the tumbling topography blinks by. The shrieking wind strikes a harmonious note to our ears. We get comfortable. Then the ground intervenes.

The diary ends on October the 7th. The remaining pages of the diary have been torn out. The final entry is incomplete. The fragment reads: “Casey thinks they know, thinks someone in the facility has found out, he keeps moving it around, I may have to ma... ”