Gathering human data
Explorer's log, Earth date 17th of May 2011
Tenth entry
Subject: Family
I'm starting to despair of my host. Well, host is really too generous a description. Ana most resembles an empty vessel. And when I write empty, I do mean empty. So far, she's proven to be a complete dud.
This cannot be how all people are or the human race would have become extinct a long time ago. Bob, my horribly traumatised pet space slug, would do a better job at life than Ana does. It isn't just that she's incredibly gullible and quite possibly utterly insane; it's her lack of meaningful relationships. As I have mentioned before, Katherine Kavanagh is her best friend, but Ana appears to loath her. Then there is a male photographer who Ana classifies as a close friend, but half the time she forgets that he even exists. I wish that was an exaggeration, but unfortunately it is not.
I thought that in examining Ana's relationship with her family I might find something – anything – but alas. Her relationship with her parents seems as hopelessly screwed up as everything else in her tedious, aggravating life.
Excerpt:
I love my mother and father, but I don't really want to talk to them or spend any time with them. I judge them both to be equally incapable of taking care of themselves. Not sure how that works: I love them, but I also pity them? It's sort of a mixture of those two emotions, I guess. Pretty hard to maintain, but I manage.
I fear that, to salvage this mission, I will have to take over Ana's body soon.