What do we remember?

Our memories shape what we are and in a big way define us. Are we the sum of what we have seen and know? Or is there something more intrinsic to our nature that makes us what we are? Something deeper that survives forgetfulness. What is the depth of the soul? And is my 'deformity of the soul' a result of two 9mm bullets to the cranium and the loss of damn near everything any deeper than a job description and language skills?

I talked this over with the Centurion Silus one time. He had some quite interesting things to say. At first he was most uncooperative and dismissive of my presence, being only a mere woman, but soon I had him singing like a choirboy. And, oh my, didn't he have some things to say, all about traitors in our ranks and Caesar getting some real bad headaches, especially after I showed him all those pieces of himself.

I had to wedge a spanner in the door or the kind hearted Lt Boyd would have spoiled all the fun. And it was fun. Red is a festive colour after all, and that room was covered in red by the time I had finished listening.

I made him watch as I gnawed the meat off his fingers.

Even Boone, poor, poor Boone with his murdered wife and unborn child, went very pale and refused to talk to me for considerable some time after I finished picking bits of centurion out of my teeth. Not that this was very evident, that man uses words like they cost money. Your lucky to get more than a dozen words a day out of him. Not that there aren't entirely different flavours of silence.

I recognise that I may be a little off kilter, a little unhinged by the standards of those around me. But I honestly do not care all that much. Why should I? I am how I was made.

Assuming that everything that I am now is the sum of my memories and remembered experiences. And when the first thing I remember is being shot in the head and buried in a shallow grave the best that can be hoped for is just one screw loose.

But I would like to think that everything is screwed just fine, if against the thread.

I won't say that I possess the all consuming hate for the Legion that possesses Boone or, just as an example, the numerous people left tied and nailed to crosses to bake in the sun. But they are the biggest bunch of arseholes ever to walk under the sun. It's not that they kill people. I have killed people, but with far more imagination. It's not that their beliefs are an amalgam of all the worst bits of history rolled into one, but that is a big part of it. It's not that they treat women like sub-human scum, although that irritates after a while.

It's that they are arrogant, dogmatic, moronic, fucktards with no imagination or appreciation for the finer things in life.

Take that idiot Vulpes Inculta as a prime example. He butchered Nipton. Because it was fractious. And the Gangers were fighting NCR and the NCR and Gangers were being taken to the cleaners by the Mayor of Nipton. This is during a little war with the NCR.

To me this just screams that you get the Gangers on your side for a time to help remove the NCR in the local area.

But oh no, you just can't let anyone live if they are not quite up to the Legions ideals of moral purity, oh God no.

I may have ranted at him for a while and given a bit of free entertainment to his troops. But in all fairness they were also quite entertaining.

He asked me if I was going to do anything about it, as I obviously felt so strongly about it. All in all that was not the sort of thing you say if you want to have a long and happy life.

I put a bullet through each of his kneecaps and, oh my, didn't he entertain me as he tried to drag himself away. The beautiful crunch, a sound from a butchers shop slab, as I stamped on his elbow and it bent in entirely the wrong way. Rubber I had thought at the time. That was how it moved afterwards. Rubbery, like one of those novelty 'fake arms' that they sell in Novac.

I watched as the flesh peeled of his bones. He was tied to a metal cross and suspended over a convenient collection of burning tyres. He cursed me and all like me and he ranted and he raved and, yes indeed, he entertained me mightily. Eventually his words became nothing but a scream of rage and then the screams of agony and they were music to my ears, oh my, weren't they just. He screamed for so, so long. Just screamed and screamed and screamed long after I would have thought it would have been impossible for him to have been able.

That's where I got my finger-bone necklace. Pretty isn't it. I'm not normally one for jewellery but its soot stained peculiarity is something of a conversation starter.

I was hoping to take the skin from his face and incorporate it into a mask of some description. But in the end there was nothing left but blackened bones.

And sunglasses. I told him to throw them over to me because grave robbing is so undignified. He actually did so. How I laughed. Mind you he had just seen me have some fun with the Ripper he was carrying on some of his formerly surviving associates. It's a bit of a design flaw in Ripper weapons how the meat and bones can get into the mechanisms and jam the motor and clog up the chain.

Am I a bad person?