Editing City Series:Volume5a Chapter8 (section)

===Rosetta's Journal===
 
A lot of interesting things happened today.

One of them is the fact that I am writing this below the night sky.

Because today Lady Beretta came and took me to a place known as college. We are still working even now.

It is already two in the morning. But everyone is doing various kinds of work or playing musical instruments and singing along or running around the streets naked until a local resident sends them flying. It is quite a commotion.

I helped make something using the tools I normally use to repair the windows. It is like a small cabin.

It resembles the mansion's chicken coop that I used the tools to destroy about eight years ago. Inside the cabin Lady Mallette installed the portable stove and oven she had brought from the ''appartement''.

I will use those to cook tomorrow. The oven is large so I intend to cook ''côtelette de viande broche''. I would like to bake a pie. But that would take too much time and I have selected simpler dishes instead.

I was surprised to find everyone was unfamiliar with how to cook fried foods in the oven.

First heat up the oven to 250 degrees Celsius and line up the unfried items inside. Then lightly sprinkle them with oil heated up to the same temperature and wait a few minutes.

By using a stepped layout in the oven the cooking will finish much faster than frying them in oil like normal. It also uses very little oil which makes it easier for women to eat. The skewers are to make it easier to eat while walking.

I am writing this on Lady Beretta's report papers.

She does not have much left. Tomorrow I think I will go to the store in the school – the building known as a school strangely has another building with a different function contained inside it – to buy some more.

That reminds me that Lady Beretta taught me about parentheses and how to use them.

*'''( ) are used to insert your own thoughts or impression.

The distinction between that and the "–" seems tricky but I will probably understand if I read back over everything.

I will try to use them well.

Lady Mallette and the others are carefully removing the coal from the oven. I will tell them we should be able to use the coal without a fire tomorrow if we store it together properly.

I have told them.

Lady Beretta is already falling asleep next to me. She said she wrote a long essay in class and had a lot of other odd jobs to complete.

When moving the stand the two of us rode her ''bicyclette'' back to the mansion – the master was out at the time – to retrieve my large prosthetic arms from the first floor storeroom. We pushed them along like a cart on the way back.

Those giant arms are acting as Lady Beretta's pillow right now. Her large bag is also resting atop the arms. I removed those large arms as soon as I had finished carrying the stand – some nearby gentlemen ran over to watch me swap out arms and I ended up completing the swap in a small school room with only Lady Beretta with me – and I reattached the human-modeled ones which I am now using to write this journal entry.

So right now I am lying down and using the streetlight to write.

This streetlight must be one of the lights I could see from the mansion's second floor.

That makes me happy. (It really does.)

After writing this much I feel like I can do a much better job of writing what I want to say than I used to. Learning various symbols to express myself must have taught me how to write various thoughts in different ways.

Cooking is the same.

A knife can only cut apart. That is why pots and cutting boards and spatulas exist. Those provide so many more methods of cooking.

Before I only had a knife when it came to writing my journal. But now I am using my words more skillfully as I write down my thoughts. That is how it feels to me. It is a strange feeling. Yes. It does not become strange because I write that it is strange. I wrote that because I wanted to convey that the feeling is strange.

I think that is the foundation of the Signe in France.

You write what you think. You use your written expressions to create yourself. From now on I will not simply write these entries aimlessly. I will write them to convey something. And that leads me to a certain thought.

Why do I discover these things while Lady Beretta is with me? I do not at all know whether or not that is a coincidence. But by definitely Signe-ing this, I can convey to myself how I feel about Lady Beretta.

It is a strange thing. I think it was different last year. Lady Beretta was not with me last year. But that is not what I mean. I am not sure how to describe it. But something was different.

I have to wonder if I was sleeping for decades before I awoke to this higher level of consciousness. It has apparently been 25 years since I was made. So could I have been sleeping for that long period of time?

If so I am glad I woke up.

Yes. And I am not just glad about myself. I am also glad that Lady Beretta is with me.

<Lady Beretta reached out her hand in her sleep. She clings to me.>

This also happened when I spent the night in Lady Beretta's room. Holding onto things in her sleep is apparently a special ability of hers. I do not know what it means. But I see a lot in common between the way she acts then and the babies holding onto their mothers I see in the city.

<She pulls me toward her and buries her face in my chest. It is difficult to move.>

I have lost free use of my hand. I am quickly writing this down with my left hand.

When I held her in my right hand Lady Beretta calmed down. That is why.

She is probably saying something in her sleep. But I will not listen to it as it is probably some kind of secret.

She would tell me if I asked her about it. She always tells me about such things even when something is worrying her.

I have several questions. But I think that is for the best. I will be able to Signe it eventually. Just as my writing is gradually transforming from a simple series of words into a conversation carrying emotion. I will try to Signe the answers to my own questions.

<Lady Beretta muttered something.

She has a pained look on her face. She seems to have gasped.>

The mothers I see in the city will calm their crying babies by holding them like something precious. So I think I will hold Lady Beretta in my arms. That is the correct answer for her since she is holding onto me as if I am her mother.

But there is one other thing I must write.

My arms still feel awkward when holding her.

Today... Today I have decided I want arms with actual warmth to them. Like a human's. I do not mind if that means I must say goodbye to the prosthetics she is using as a pillow.

Can I become human?

I do not think everything I did today was part of my job. That is what I believe.