Free The Spectral Link by Thomas Ligotti

of age came and went. I’d kill myself if I thought you’d let me. That’s not what you want, though, is it? Could you please give me an answer just once?
    Everything is such a mystery with you people—halfers I used to think, but I don’t know anymore. I lost my instinct for that the moment I stepped into this place. Did you do that? And what about the tingling? That hasn’t happened in who knows how long. It would be nice to see a clock or a calendar every so often. Don’t you care about time, whatever you are? How about space, existence, all the commotion of reality? I’ve known it was all just a preposterous mess for ages now. I also learned that I should be on the outside, and the rest of this ludicrous world, or most of it, should be in here for study and rehabilitation, adjustment and readjustment, if that’s the point. What are you trying to accomplish? Whatever it is, you seem to be doing a terrible job of it. Is everything still as crummy as I remember it? Your world, whichever one it may have been, was an offense to my eyes. And it didn’t have to be that way. But maybe that’s the way you wanted it—a nightmare from morning stool to bedtime stories.
    Oh, here they come—the big boys. You can tell them to take their hands off me. Big boys with big hands. But are they really big, or only half big? I believe an autopsy could establish the facts, if you’d allow me the pleasure. My parents were half-smalls. The alignment of their bones was human enough, but their organs seemed all of a piece. It could have been they were starting to convert, I don’t know. So what’s inside of the small people, Doctor? My guess is that they’re composed of some doughy substance inside and out—a flabby clay that can be molded into any form, having no identity of its own. Is this really our world, the real world, or is it theirs? Did the right hand of evolution know what the left hand was doing? And what about the spectral link? I have my theories. I’ve had lots of time to think about that, for what it’s worth—thinking. Give me a hint, something to mull over. I just need a speck of hope to keep me from going to pieces—a little truth to hang onto. Answer me, Doctor, before I’m dragged off. Who are you? What are you? Answer me. For the love of all that is real—Who am I? What am I?