I’m afraid of the bad thing happening. We are all afraid of the bad thing happening here, needless to say – every one of us. We’re all afraid, we’re all so very afraid, but we don’t like to talk about it. We don’t even like to allude to it; we never allude to it – not even tangentially – because this would remind us of what we’re so afraid of and we’re trying to pretend that it isn’t there, which is of course what people do when they’re very afraid. We’re all trying to pretend that that the bad thing doesn’t exist and that it isn’t going to happen. That’s what we all do and who can blame us. It’s perfectly natural, after all. So very natural. So anyway, that’s the story, that’s how it is. That’s what’s going on. The story has to do with all of us being very afraid of the bad thing happening but being very careful never to mention it. Not even to ourselves do we mention it! Especially not to ourselves. Don’t name it – whatever you do don’t name it. Never name it. Because if you do then you’ll bring it to life – you’ll bring it to life in an instant. You’ll give it power. It doesn’t take very much, after all. Even an unwary glance will do it. You just have to stare ahead fixedly and pretend as hard as you possibly can that there’s nothing there to be scared of. My magical name in the magical world is Arturo but I’m not allowed to tell anyone that. If you tell anyone your magical name then all the magic is lost and you instantly become some kind of sad tosser. I can talk about it here, within the context of this monolog, but not in real life – not with the various people that I might actually meet and interact with in my everyday life. If I told them about my magical name they’d laugh at me. Some of them would probably try to beat me up out of pure disgust. If they were able that is, and I’d say most of them probably would be able. Only the very weak ones wouldn’t be. The weak or enfeebled ones. That wouldn’t happen in this world anyway – I’m talking here about one of the parallel pseudo-worlds, a particular extrapolated version of reality that I call World XX111. World XX111 is the apparently normal world that everyone apparently knows about. It’s not the real world though – the real world is the Fear World and that’s where we really are. We’re all trapped in the Fear World. The Fear World is where we have to pretend very hard all the time. We have to pretend so hard that it hurts and there’s never any let up from it. There’s no let up from the pain. The Fear World is a medium-sized room full of dusty filing cabinets on the fifth floor of a big office type-building and they are about 10 people in it, including me. We are the Eternals and we are all that remains of humanity. Ten wretchedly unworthy and pathetic people – including myself of course. Only I myself am not really there – I am one of the Exceptional Ones who have been granted immunity to the Law of Degradation. I live in a parallel world, an alternate reality. In my imagination, that is. Only I’m not allowed to tell anyone about this immunity, of course – if I do then everyone else in the room will immediately turn on me and beat the head off me out of pure jealousy and resentment. Then they’d throw me out of the window. That’s the type of people they are, you see…