Bertie locked eyes with him. He felt he could not look away. He took in a breath. “I don’t know how you do it, Karl. I don’t know how you have survived, how you keep yourself so calm so much of the time.” “It’s not a calmness. Whatever factory was inside me to run my grief, I had to shut it down. I will never turn it back on again.” “Why?” “Because what has happened is beyond human comprehension. It’s beyond sense. All it is, is poison. And if I want to stay human, I have to protect myself.” “That’s not a happy moral.” “I’ve realized that the mind can do only two things: make us happy and keep
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