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Tao begins to laugh, "I'm serious, man." Now he's noticing that my right thumb is red, and he asks
me if I cut myself. I look down at my thumb and realize it's beginning to bleed again. This damn
superficial cut that won't heal.

"It somewhat healed a while back, but it never fully heals." Tao tells me that he bets the cut has
turned into the shape of a circle. I look at it, and notice that he is right. "Circles are common
throughout nature," he tells me. Tao begins to say "Did you know that" but I stop him
mid-sentence because as interested as I may be, I know he will be here for thirty more minutes if I
let him continue. Tao goes back to his apartment, but before he leaves he says "dictum meum
pactum." He claims to me that his word is his bond.

About fifteen minutes later I leave my apartment, go down the first flight of stairs and then down
the second flight that leads into the basement of the apartment building where my clothes are being
washed. There I find Mary, who is also washing her clothes. She looks in my direction but doesn't
entirely look directly at me. I go to the washer that houses my clothes, and there is nothing but
silence from either of us.

I notice that she has gained even more weight than the last time Tao mentioned it. Maybe she just
doesn't care anymore. Maybe she got fired and said "fuck it." She finishes putting all her clothes in
her basket and begins to walk away, and while she's walking away I watch her, and I can't help but
wonder how her brain works. How anyone's brain works.

The triune brain model consists of three parts, the neomammalian complex which deals with
language and perception, the paleomammalian complex which deals with reproductive and
parental behavior, and the reptilian complex which deals with aggression and dominance displays.
Now what I'm wondering is if our brain is trained to use a specific part of its makeup more-so than
others in accordance to a specific environment. Like social fragments, how we are different
versions of ourselves around different people, I wonder if there are psychologically fragments,
where a part of our brain dominates usage over all others depending on who or what the subject is.

Mary's social fragment towards me probably tends to stray towards the "you are just another
useless person" personality, and her psychological fragment probably tends to stray towards the
"full of contempt for you" complex. The funny thing is I know I feel the same way about her. Not
in those words.

Chapter 44:
THE ROSE CITY

Several months ago, I had a dream. I'm in an office room watching a presentation on a big screen.
Who exactly is giving the presentation I am not sure, it was simply a white shade in the shape of a
human body. The white shade tells me that there was a man who once said that there is nothing in
the dark that isn't there when the lights are on, and then he points to a photograph of a man covered
in darkness.

"This man, like you, has realized that no one ever truly dies." That's what he says to me, and I try to
ask him what he means but I can't talk because of the bandage over my mouth. Regardless, he tells
me that what he means is that there is no such thing as birth and death here. That nothing here is