Free The Devil's Mirror by Ray Russell Page A

dreaming, pin my whirling mind down to a piece of paper like a moth, and watch it twitch and flap and maybe die, but no, it did not die, it grew, branched out, becoming very like another me. another me that reached around the world, the act of teaching language to my mind kept me afloat, kept me from killing me, kept me from going mad, and kept my mind from brooding, in my lonely life, on love.
    there, i have done it. written an entire paragraph without the nineteenth letter, i knew i could do it if i really tried, but i find it rather limiting and pointlexx.
    it wax a happy day when firxt i xtumbled on thix ruxty old typewriter, and taught myxelf to uxe it, and fi¢ed it up, and oiled it, and found wayx to ink the ribbon, the xhift key and the dollar xign were far beyond all filing, but that i did not mind, more xerioux, more irkxome, wax the mixxing letter, nineteenth letter of the alphabet, how could i write without it. i decided to xubxtitute the letter x. all right, but what then would i uxe for x. not much occaxion to uxe it, i reaxoned, xo i will use in itx place, it wax only after i had gotten uxed to thix arrangement that i xaw what a fool i had been, why not uxe ¢ for the nineteenth letter and uxe x for itxelf. but by that time it wax too late, and bexidex, what doex it matter, i am alone, all alone, all alone.
    later
    i have tried to figure out how old i am, but it ix too difficult i cannot do it. i think i am young, i have xeen my reflection and i look like the young women in the old bookx and magazinex.
    my hair ix very long, of courxe, for i have never cut it. it reachex to my waixt. it ix yellow, flaxen the old bookx would call it, like the hair of rapunzel and melixande. men would probably tell me it ix beautiful, i am rather thin, because it ix not alwayx eaxy to find thingx to eat and i get a lot of e¢ercixe doing everything for myxelf, and i walk a great deal, but i do not think i would be called xkinny. i am very tan from head to toe becauxe i am in the xun xo much, my eyex are blue, my breaxtx have finally xtopped growing i think, they are not as big ax xome in the magazinex but are about the xize of large applex. i have xeen picturex of people eating applex xo i know how big they were, but i have never xeen a real apple.
    if i kept to the citiex there would never be a problem about food, plenty of food in canx and jarx in the xtorex, enough to keep me going for the rext of my life, i think, but i do not like the citiex very much and i try to keep out of them ax much ax i can. i take ax many canx of food ax i can carry and live out in the hillx until i run out of food and then i come in for more, in the bookx, they talk about living off berriex and nutx, but i have never found any and there are no fixh in the xtreamx.
    later
    i think about xam an awful lot. how i played with him, and talked to him, and how he tried to talk to me in hix own way. i loved him and i know he loved me. he alwayx woke up before i did, and he wax alwayx glad when i awakened, almoxt ax if he wax afraid i had gone away, and wax happy that i had returned i would alwayx xay good morning xam. it lookx like a beautiful day, i would tell him, chattering on and on, the xky ix blue, no rain in the air. i would axk him what will we do today, xam, and then i would anxwer my own quextion. today we will go down into the town and get food to eat. how would you like a can of corned beef haxh, I would axk him. i feel like having xome chili, myxelf. and maybe a can of peax or axparagux. xam would eat peax but not axparagux, but i like them both. after that, i would tell xam, we will go to the library and get xome more bookx. no, not for you, you xilly thing, for me. bookx about the way it wax before you and i were born. true bookx, xome of them, and xome of them made up by men and women to pleaxe each other. i think xam wax a little jealoux of the bookx, and the way i would xit and look at them for hourx and not play with him. now i wixh i had