From the Notes of Doctor Malcolm Long:

[Tenth Entry – Personal Note #4]

I got home late. Decided to walk home instead. Left car at the prison. Grabbed a quick drink during the walk. It had been an interesting day.

I felt confused, beaten, and thoroughly conquered. If Rorschach had known this, I probably would have been doing a lot more smiling when we parted ways. But that was the thing, I don't know. I don't know how to help a person like Rorschach—because to understand a man like that is to understand why this city—this world—is the way it is. It's to understand the darkness in the heart of such a place. I admit: I'm not sure I'd want to look into it, even if I could.

This whole place seems different now. Everyday, I drove through, with everything just blending into the background. I never smelled the stink of ripe dumpsters, I never felt the warmth of a nightly rain on my skin, and I was certainly never called the N-word for not buying a stolen watch. This place has its demons, just like its citizens do, and in that sense—this city is alive.

I beat up the man who called me the N-word. Wrapped one of his stolen Rolexes around my knuckles and knocked him to the ground. Before I finished him off, I declared "Time's up!" and slammed that watch into his forehead.

I picked up my briefcase and walked away. No one even seemed to notice. Is this what it's like to live in the dark of this city? People allow other people to wail on each other? They allow other people to make terrible puns as they do so? No, this city isn't alive—this city is dying.

When I got home, Gloria, my dearest wife, reminded me that our white friends, Randy and Diana, were coming over for dinner. Told her that I hadn't remembered, and she gave me the silent treatment until the doorbell rang.

It was a nice dinner. The food was good. Randy and Diana sparked random conversation. Boston's More Than A Feeling was playing gently over the radio. For all intents and purposes, it should have been a perfect night. I should have been enthusiastically taking part in the discussion floating over the table. I should have been rocking out with Randy and throwing up my air guitar at the epic solo that would eventually play.

But I didn't. I sat, stared, and mechanically dished food into my mouth too keep up appearances. It all felt terribly wrong. How could I enjoy myself when so much in the world, and in my very city, was being chewed up by the darkness? It felt like I was trying to play Texas Hold 'Em in the middle of a battlefield…with a clown…and I hate clowns.

Randy attempted to bring up what happened during my much-publicized interviews with the infamous Rorschach. He tried his hardest to be lighthearted about it, but I was in no mood to filter the details.

"He told me about a girl who got kidnapped," I told him, plainly.

"Oh, boy!" he says. "Was she captured and helpless and rescued by Rorschach like Dirty Harry? Gawd, that would be awesome if you were to tell me that right now!"

"No, actually…" And I tell him what happened to the girl, and the precious, precious dogs. His pupils dilate and his wife accidentally coughs up a piece of pasta.

They didn't stay very long after that.

I sat on my bed, with the lights turned off, and stared into a Rorschach blot that I had lying around. After Gloria comes in and feeds me the usual speech about my sexual-retardation, she leaves the house—probably to Jenkins' place for her booster shot of Vitamin P, which I'm still not sure is an actual vitamin or not.

Back during one of the interviews, Rorschach had called the blot a pretty butterfly. He said it with cosmic indifference. He was lying, of course. What a pal, just telling me what I wanted to hear instead of putting me face to face with the truth…like he eventually did…the bastard.

The truth is that there is nothing on this piece of paper. There is no butterfly—pretty or otherwise—and there is no meaning. It is simply a picture of empty, meaningless blackness. There is nothing else that it can teach those who look upon it, other than what you think you see. You are glossing over the truth. You are giving meaning where there is none. Your mind is giving you butterflies to gaze upon when in reality you are riding a rollercoaster into a definite oblivion.

We are alone.

There is nothing else.

Rorschach helped me to see this, and I will hate him eternally for this.

Also, I left my Jell-o pudding cups in the Pinto when I sold it…

God…

Dammit…