That missing piece.

     I sat at the table, tearing little shards of wrapper off of my bottle. For all my haughty thoughts, I was sitting there, and I couldn't think of the things to say. Or, rather, I just couldn't say them. I was very disarmed. I just wanted to tell you things, and not worry about them.
  
     I could tell you had that one thing that I almost always lack when I talk to people: an inner confidence, solidarity with yourself.

     I want to tell you all the things I was thinking, and that I still think, but to do it here is a coward's forum. I'd rather tell you in person. I just hope I get the chance.


~Section Break~

(fiction)

     She stepped into the room, kicking off her shoes. It happened again tonight. "It's going to keep happening," she sighed, "until I tell him to stop."
    The lump on the couch shifted until a head popped out from the blankets. "What was it this time, lamb?"
    Sitting roughly on the edge of the couch, she looked over at the upturned face. "This time it was Fear. He gave the guy Fear. I really wish I just had a normal family for once..."
    "Well, that's just your father being overprotective. I'll talk to him when he gets home, Someone needs to tell him his daughter is growing up." The blankets shifted, and the face disappeared. Slowly, they writhed their way up to pull her from the arm of the couch, enveloping her, laying her gently on the couch until she let out a sniffle, and went to sleep.
     "You know," the blankets whispered to the shadow in the corner, "you didn't even want to adopt a human in the first place. If you're going to be her father, at least be enough of a father to let her grow up."
     The shadow in the corner grunted softly, once, and faded away.