... Guy gets on a train with a box, airholes in the side. The man he sits down next to asks him about it, and he admits that he's got a mongoose in there. Dude B is like, "Not something normal, like a bunny or a cat?" No, there's more to the story. "It's because of my older brother. He's a drunk, among other things, and at this point he's just completely out of his tree. He sees serpents, everywhere. Everywhere he looks, he's seeing these snakes and they make him terrified." And Dude B is like, "So they're imaginary?" Yeah. "So then why the mongoose?" And the first guy smiles and looks very meaningfully at the box, which is empty. "Imaginary mongoose."

In every house there's a little room we don't know about. And inside that room, there are insects and darkness and the sound of scratching, and a hot red heat at the back of your eyes. And a lot of us don't ever open the door, so we're surprised when the monsters in that room take us down. In the apartment on Delphi it was hidden behind the Eye of Jupiter and a poem about Socrata, and sex, and death. On Galactica they call it the brig. On the Pegasus they put up a sign: "Please Disturb." But if you open the door, and step inside, you'll find that they're just...well, we'll get there. The truth would only scare you. For now, remember: if you pretend that door's not there, it's going to open by itself, and if you're not ready when the door opens, you can do some fucking horrible things to the people you should love most. Like your kids. Or yourself: "You must have caught hell for that," Anders says, and her voice is pretty light: "She grabbed my hand, held it in the doorjamb and slammed the door." Anders curses; Starbuck smiles: "It was worth it, though." It was an imaginary mongoose: always worth it. Human psychology is based on projection.