"For several weeks we coexisted, Brother Laurence and I. This, as you know, is not a small house, and it became very easy for us to each get lost in our own little worlds. What didn't help was that he took a room in the far wing of the house, where he basically brought to birth the entire community. It was just as well, I suppose, because I was still battling one huge depression. My guest's insistence on avoiding me only aggravated my sense of isolation, and even when I tried to reach out to him I was greeted by a kind of timid indifference from him.
"I was also being haunted by nightmares, of the cult that used to live on these premises. It turns out, Jesús, that the small bit of Cosme's journal that we have heard thanks to you and Aaron's noble efforts at translation, was also the substance of some of my dreams. People robed in white, chanting in procession while carrying torches and then suddenly vanishing, and threatening to carry me with them. In those nightmares I was studiously resisting being swallowed up with them.
"I started trying to seek out brother Laurence. From time to time, he would tolerate my presence, and stand and listen patiently while I tried to talk with him. I could tell, especially with what I was going through, that he was suffering from trauma, but somehow we just weren't connecting.
"Like others here, I have also, of course, been obsessed with the southern magnolia out in the back. One day, sick of everything, I picked up all my sleeping medication that the doctor had just put me on, and brought the pills with me along with a bottle of water. I sat on one of the benches. swallowed a fistful of pills, then drank some water. I had forgotten that Robert was coming up that day, because he was especially concerned about how things were going. Fortunately, he found me before it was too late..."
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