All stories belong to someone else, he writes. Not even the story of our own life can be told without narrating the story of other people’s lives.

He examines the photo of his youngest daughter.

What will she write about him one day?

“Africa is far away,” he’d said.

            “I am here.”

            We belong to the same world, he hears her voice continue, but it’s not what he recalls. No, she just said her I’m here, as if it said it all.

Lula’d say it does.

We are obligated to the people before us, he writes.

Corrects it:

The degree to which we are obligated to the people before us, depends on whether we are stronger or weaker. The one who commands the might to influence the life of the other, also bears the obligation.

Yes, that’s how it is.

            He deletes the passage.

Of all people he ought to know. He walks the edge. Between outside and inside. Does he command might or is he prey to the might?

            “You’re one of us,” his wife would say.

            “She’s bound to say so,” Lula’d say. “Because she knows that in truth you’re one of us,” she’d have continued.

            To him it’s of no consequence. It’s all about practicality.

            It’s practical to be married into.

            Of course he’s in command.

            Much selling literature pays for little selling literature. That’s the way it’s always been. Always will be. Also Petra Vinter ought to appreciate it: the author’s novels pay for her mathematical poetry collections.

            He retypes the last four lines. Is about to delete them once more, when instead he places them in brackets. Proceeds: