Connection

For once, the line is crystal clear. The images from the desert in perfect clarity on our screens. The camera finds the skipper, Captain Joy!

Captain! Captain! They call to him. He speaks without looking at them. A release for us all. Our one true love.

"I am of all things now. I am of what they are not...."

A quiet man...

... this man. Small and getting smaller. He wondered where she was now, the woman who had left him. He tried not to look for her but he saw her everywhere in every face, in all reflections.

A soft man, nearly. He would hide from the Captain.

He was a quiet man. And his name was Joe.

Job done

Ever more was the troop referred to as the Elephantine. Regardless of foe or friend, the job would always be done. Where others wished to be seen working, the Elephantine's work was always simply seen to.

Ordinariness

Small things matter now to the Empty Emperor. Like sitting in a laundromat of a Tuesday morning, waiting for the dryer. Something connects in him like a tooth falling into eye -- this could be something, this could be something.