The Perfect Man told me a story while we were in prison. He said to me that he himself had been born in prison. He said that he had also been raised in prison. And one day, he got to see a judge, and he asked the judge, "How is it I am deprived of liberty, though I have committed no crime?" "You were born in prison?" asked the judge. "Yes," said the Perfect Man. "Well then," said the judge, "you haven't been deprived of anything. You never had liberty to begin with."

I saw an ape. Surgeons were making a brain of metal. And they implanted the brain of metal into the ape. He was a robot, and a beast. He immediately killed one of the surgeons for doing this to him, and then mourned, for he felt guilty. He tried to kill himself next, but the doctors wouldn't let him, and he lived his life in agony. He was thrown into the prison where I dwelt, and remains there still.

There were roaches in the prison. The roaches wore skirts of grass and had little spears. They performed roach rituals, waiting for the end, waiting for the beginning. They prayed to the Perfect Roach, and threw the roach poison people gave them back into the people's food.

I saw one of the men in dark suits peeling what looked like a boiled egg. And I looked, and I saw that under the shell was a huge eyeball. The man in the dark suit is the eyeball, for these men eat nothing but eyes.

And I looked during the meteor storm at the constellations (watch the skies, watch the skies), and the constellations were yet fixed, though the stars were falling, (watch the skies), and I looked at the moon, (watch the skies), and the moon was fixed in crescent, though the stars were falling (watch the skies), and I knew the end was not yet, not till the very constellations should burn and be set aflame shall the end come (watch the skies), and I knew the earth would go on and on forever.

I also knew that a day would arrive when men would bow down and worship machines, and those machines would do what their gods could not, and make them immortal.

And the black man said to me, "We cannot resist the will of God."

And the white man said to me, "It is not for us to create God's kingdom before the time."

And the Perfect Man said to me, "No machine can take you from the prison where you are."

And a terrible realization suddenly overwhelmed me.