I don't think I can marry, I'm not fit for it, I'm not real enough. That's the trouble. I'm a puppet that's realised what's wrong with itself and it's horrible. I'm propped up somewhere all alone, watching the real people go past. I'm propped up crying in a corner.

Ludens felt that everyone around him was living in the present, a place where he certainly could not live.

He felt himself falling into a state, very common when he was younger, of being totally cut off from the society he was in.

I'm not like other people, my life just doesn't work, it never has.