And in the in between, in that shady place that we call normal, we bargain our souls. We defend their ways; we prosecute their ways; we chase them, we call them names and bury their faces so that we can hum ourselves to sleep with denial as our mantra. We push them and stretch them and cut them to fit at every single turn. And as they gasp and struggle, we strangle them, we rape them. We put them to rot in a darkened room deep down in the landscape of our minds and proceed with the circus. The thing is, it's all about how well you bargain and how good a show you put on.