(Previous) 2 of 3 I received a shock, just now. That's their way of telling me they don't like what I'm writing. They think I have some brilliant plan to get this message back home (to Earth?) to warn everyone. My God, they're so paranoid. I don't even know where I am, and I haven't spoken to anyone else, so how could I get this message out? The shocks will get worse, I guess, but I'm used to them.   I wonder what "they" look like. Are they aliens? Interdimentional beings? Demons? Something I can't even conceive? Are they smarter than us, or dumber? Am I still on Earth, or am I on the other side of the universe? If "they" are demons, could I be in hell? Most importantly, are they surprised and shocked by what I write, endlessly baffled? Or does every word draw them deeper into my brain? They want me to start a new story. Something calming, a story we humans tell over and over, a psychopompic tale that they can use, like Freud or Jung, as a lever into our subconscious. Something that shows that we humans have never encountered anything like them. That we're settled, crystallised, that we can't handle the new.   I refuse to give it to them. I dredge my mind for any thought, any idea, which I can use as a barrier against the tide of grey. I create worlds in my mind like labyrinths, hoping they will get lost forever.   Why, you may ask (there I go, entertaining vain hopes that some other human will ever read this), do I not just refuse to write at all?   Because of the Muse. That's my name for it, the machine that sits on the desk like a leech, sucking my thoughts into its glass belly. If I don't actively participate, it starts to dredge my mind, and out pour myths, dirty limericks, hollywood screenplays, self-help books--the very things they want. I have to shape the words, finding new meanings, bending them into puzzles. I only hope that what I have to say is not merely a prettified version of what they already know. (Next)