"Daddy! Daddy!"

"Shut up and eat your cucubus."

The answering machine clicks on. "Hi! I'm from the Free Association. When people twiddle, we eat peaches. What's that you're listening to? *sniff sniff* Ah, you're listening to `me', in the first movement of `my' famous Third Answering Machine Message! Too bad `I'm' not out on CD yet. Did you ever hear about that experiment they did where they sat a monkey down in a chair, taped its eyelids open and forced it to look at the same scene for eight hours? Then they killed it, chopped off its head, opened its skull and peeled off the gray matter. They injected it with a neurotransmitter dye, and, lo and behold, there was the picture, laid out on the monkey's visual cortex! Neat, huh? Kind of like one of those `magic marker' coloring books. Can I try it on one of your kids? Well, I have to be now. Have thirteen nice days, then sicken and die! *click*"

Matella sighs. For her, the days are bland and white.

These are not the days. They never were.