I'll keep that in mind next time my lips get lonely.

[He wouldn't; he was lonely all of the time it seemed, but it sounded good and kept things moving. He didn't acknowledge the sorry and didn't want it. He'd only told John to set up the structure of his experience in all this.]

If he got dead, that's a start. [The words were darkly said. Belief or not, that kind of thing deserved as much fire as one could summon.] So Jim's the guy, huh? A good one, I'm assumin'. If he helped.