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Leslie cannot speak. She has things she wants to say, and that she feels she should say, but they do not form into words. A sour taste occupies her stomach. It feels like her head is overheating and as she stares blankly, her head seems to cool off some. Her leg bounces up and down.

Leslie is angry! The system she is forced to use is inefficient and has all sorts of runabout rules. She still does as she's supposed to, but she expresses her frustration all throughout.

Leslie arrives at her parents' house, she comes in and she goes straight to setting herself up in that place. Her dad then confronts her. "Didn't you notice where the wet paint is drying? Now you just messed it up!"

Leslie's head is numb. She feels her writing ability locking up. She is spent from the writing, from trying to remember her experiences and put the thoughts into words on paper. She doesn't know if she would be able to continue. She can't push it, but she must continue it each and every day.

"I don't ever want to hear you talk about how you can't afford sex reassignment surgery," said the Canadian who's already had sex reassignment surgery to the American Leslie. "Even if it would be appropriate, I don't want to hear about it. Try thinking of the starving people in third world countries. You Americans act like you're so entitled all the time. That's that characteristic American privilege, the belief that Americans must always be heard and must always get what they want. I'm tired of it."

Leslie is alone. Toxic smoke fills her head and her stomach burns. She feels like she has just been whacked really hard on the head, as her consciousness seems dim. She sits and wrings her hands.

"Leslie," called the man who shined, wearing knight's armor without a helmut, with long hair, "you need to stop being so angry about this sex change business. Keep in mind that you are not entitled to sex change surgery. No one is. That you should be covered for it is a myth. Your anger stems from your sense of injustice and the tendency of injustice to make your blood boil. Stop with the anger, stop with the fantasies, stop with the arguing! Just accept that you don't deserve to have sex change surgery covered."

Leslie accepted the shining man's advice.

This is with respect to Momoko Sakura's Coji Coji, particularly the scene where Kamekichi cheers up Yakan.

Leslie feels somewhat dead inside for arguing against sex reassignment surgery, but at least there is a sense of peace, instead of escalating anger and the burning of the stomach.

Leslie is like a machine with insults in it, a machine that's been hit really hard on the wall, and no longer runs quite properly. A sad scene it is to see this once proud machine continue running its darnedest, but it just can't run right anymore. The right eye is forever semi-shut, and the supraorbital ridge over that eye has avalanched down onto it.

Leslie threw down the structure, which had been built in millions of hours of painstaking labor. It now lies smashed upon the ground. Leslie, with a heavy heart, turns away.

"Why would you want to leave our state for another? You must stay here and suffer and be a hero," says the activist to Leslie.

"I'm not going to have you move here. I don't care if you think this state is better for you. You're just being selfish. I'm not going to let you just abandon the other trans people in your home state. Get thee back!" says Leslie's uncle to her.

"You Americans need to understand something. We're not here to be a shoulder to cry on for you privileged people who can't get surgery. It's something that you all are going to have to fight for yourself. Ooh, Americans really need to learn some respect!"

The Apocalypse of the Shining Man

Thou shalt not be covered for sex reassignment surgery, for even wert thou covered, it would be to a sub-optimal surgeon. The one who truly becometh functional is one who can save up money for the surgery. She is of a class that exceedeth you. It is blasphemy to even think thou canst surpass her.

I can see the burning, longing pain inside thee, but hast thou not read in the scriptures, "But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints"? I say that for thee, covetousness is named countless times. Thou must deny thyself.

Leslie's stomach burns and is sour. She feels tingling inside it. It was in her mind attached to her inability to get sex reassignment surgery, but she hath now severed that attachment. It is now a floating, object-less feeling.

Leslie is in the mental hospital with the men, because she remaineth pre-op, where she was harassed by that gay man. She reported the harassment, but was scolded by the staff for making up stories. She is now being evaluated by her doctor for her manipulative behavior.

"So you defrauded us!" said the insurance company to Leslie. "You put yourself down as female even though you were still pre-op!"

"Well, I wasn't sure what to put, but my job had put me down as female previously even though I was pre-op," responded Leslie.

"So you admit deliberately putting down female, huh? You getting this, Lurch?"

Later, Leslie is in prison. She is bloody all over and has contracted HIV due to the prison environment.

"Well, if you didn't want to do the time, then you shouldn't have done the crime! No one would have wanted to dispute it had you put yourself down as male, as you should have."

"You need to learn to be more mature about this! I'm sure if you set up fundraising for an orchiectomy, you'd be able to get the funding. People like mature people with realistic goals. Maybe they'd help you if you had insurance funding already for sex change surgery, but you don't. You're just going to have to accept it. You see these people with their fundraising for top surgery and orchiectomy? These people are where it's at. They have realistic goals--they're not going for the luxury items like you. Yeah! I'd like a Rolls Royce! But do you see me being able to get it anytime soon? No! Of course not!"

Leslie stands with a stone-faced silence, not responding.

"Oh! You're just impossible! Go have fun with your pathetic life, you POS!"

Leslie is always pleasant with her doctors. She cannot be anything else. While with them, she hides the storm.

"You remind me of Ted Kaczynski," said Leslie's dad to her. He was responding to her facial tics.

Before going to sleep, Leslie found it hard to breathe, but she feels a sense of life in her chest, breathing easier, after napping some. Her head is replete with constant images of Koumei of Detective Conan fame. She remembers in multi-parters in the shows that at the end of each part the suspects (including people who are actually innocent of the crime in question) are drawn in nefarious-looking ways, each in a way that is characteristic of the character in question.

The conflict is less, now, but her head feels filled with fog, like she's still only half-awake. This state is actually rather peaceful, so she does not mind it at all.

Leslie has found someone to hate! Suddenly, clarity fills her mind, and the fog lifts. She now has focus! The only thing is, Can she maintain it well enough for it to do any good?

Leslie contemplated saying, I hate you! to her parents. Boy, what a sense of focus that would have given her! But she thought the better of, then lay down.

Slowly, the fog reentered her head, filling the room. She felt adrift, at peace again. However, she had a painful feeling accompany this, as this meant that her sense of focus was being reduced again. Her sense of agency. She feels like she is slipping back into the old.

Still, she floats. She then contemplates suppressing her gender dysphoria again. Invalidating herself.