every now and again...we get the inkling that we're not entirely without allies that we don't know about. what do I mean by that?

after all, we're not completely alone. we have a tiny number of people directly connected with us in some way, who are supportive to various degrees. we live with people who are kind to us, if nothing else.

but how much any of these immediate friends and acquaintances really grasp just who we think we are, who we say we are...how many of them are people we could talk to, with frankness and understanding, about the experiences over the last couple of years that brought us to this point...that's in doubt.

we feel completely in the dark. maybe we simply suffered a psychotic break and have remained permanently broken. would we know? we seem to be at the outer fringes, even as plural and fictive persons. all tentative communications with other people who seemed to have a perception of self (or selves) *most similar* to ours, have faltered and failed, sometimes disastrously. and there's no one around to blame but ourselves, for that.

a long while ago someone whom we'd all rather forget once predicted that we'd *always* rub people the wrong way. we'd *never* feel like we fit in with anyone, anywhere. at the time it just seemed like brag and abuse, the sort of thing you'd get from a vicious parent (or someone speaking in imitation of one) reminding a fractious child who the boss really was. now, years later, it feels uncomfortably like an accurate prediction.

people stay away from us.

and yet...for all that, we still get those inklings that someone wants us to keep going, keep trying. wants us not to be defeated by life's problems, or something.

I don't know. none of us knows. Chara, Azzy, myself, the rest of us...we'd all like to believe that we have silent support from somewhere or other...but we don't know. and we have a bad feeling that we _can't_ know.