There was a long hallway connecting the two old buildings that he never quite had the courage to go through. Even during the day the hall appeared ominous, as if lurking in the very walls that created it were the malevolent spirits of the dying city. He would always look down the hall, somewhat longingly in fact, and feel the shiver run up and down his back. He would repeatedly reassure himself that the hall would one day reveal its secrets.
Although he was one of many he seemed to be the only one to take note of that hallway, being a lonely warrior working his way through each day with the monotonous gait only achievable in the modern age. Despite all of his ambitions, his hopes and his dreams it all ultimately came to a simple concept of getting from point A to point B. No matter how he looked at his life it always came back to that, a perpetual and predictable plan of action with a disillusioning end. He tried several vain attempts at making his daily routine seem less mundane. He would hold his head high and observe his surroundings intently, trying to pick it apart into its singular components, studying each and looking for meaning. On occasion he would change his route and explore the relatively new crannies of his city. How was it that, in such a chaotic city, he was unable to truly find a sense of living? Through the blaring of sirens and horns and the drone of voices such a sensation was oddly absent. It was all more a great cacophony
It was early March when he finally summoned up the courage to venture down its long, lonely corridor. Embalmed in the soft warmth of early spring he had walked slowly and deliberately, examining every crack and discoloration on the walls. The bricks were heavily weathered with trails of water crisscrossing its surface, moss beginning to show along their paths. The moist smell that emanated from the walls reminded him of his childhood camping trips with his parents. It reminded him of the dank corners of the woods he inevitably would seek out, peering through the darkness at moss-covered rocks and poking in moist, moist earth. He had always kept his eyes open with the hopes of finding a salamander or frog desperately searching for another hiding place as he upturned their world. He was young and adventurous, completely removed from the realities of the world that he now was a part of.
But among the brick and iron of the city there were not many secrets to capture, at least not of the slippery kind. Everything was cold and hard with a manufactured sense of life that failed to inspire him. It dulled his senses, weighing down on his mind like a specter; untouchable, unseeable, but present. He would try to imagine himself separated from all of that which surrounded him to see if there was something more full of hope and joy, but nothing ever seemed enough. There was just that quiet hallway.
He stopped momentarily and leaned against the wall. It was cool, its brick sucking the warmth out of his body. He wondered where that warmth went once the brick grabbed it. He imagined it as his life force being reintegrated into the world, another instance of it’s life-sucking ambitions. But he let it go calmly this time. There was something right about this particular transfer as if the wall was a wise entity to be respected. For once he relished the feeling.
Past the walls he could hear the city going about its day as usual. Cars occasionally honked their horns, engines revving and their people squawking. A few birds could be heard calling fretfully to each other, speaking a language foreign yet integrated with the surroundings.
So went his days, returning to the hallway whenever the opportunity arose, choosing to spend as much time there as possible. He became obsessed with watching the slow movements of the world within the hallway. He listened to the walls moan and creak under the weight of time. As the rain fell over the course of months he could see their paths etched further into the face of the walls, the water happily making its way ever downward. In the days following the rain the moss would once again spring to life, following the water’s trails and crisscrossing every which way. Occasionally a wind would come blowing over the tops of the walls from the city outside and tear about the small space. It would laugh loudly as leaves and dust would lift wildly and swirl around in circles, everything screaming in manic joy. It was a brief moment of the hurried insanity of the city seeping into the secluded world of the hallway. In such moments he would yell and curse loudly, waving his arms at the invisible offender and calling the earth a whore for celebrating with such scandalous force.
That hallway became his domain, a sanctuary amidst the world, a world that presented itself not as a place of peace but as land of happenstance and confusion. Despite his lack of control over the slow movements between those dark walls he felt a great sense of power, of being an omnipotent being directing a great spectacle solely through his capacity of observation. In that world only minute nuances reigned supreme, not the overtly obvious occurrences. He reveled in this newfound power, challenged only by the occasional howling of the invading wind.
Outside, beyond the walls, the times were changing. The buildings that were connected by the hallway had been decaying steadily and the city had finally condemned it as an unsanitary relic, unused even by the local homeless. The decision to destroy them came about without much fanfare. Those who passed the buildings on their daily commutes barely glanced at it, wondering at how those buildings of such old age were still standing. When the signs announcing their removal finally appeared most simply shrugged and went about their day.
But he was incensed. The thought of losing his new home threw him into such fits that his apartment had quickly become a mess of broken furniture. He increasingly spent more time in the hallway, sitting and mumbling to himself, full of anger and sadness. This was his place of being, the only spot in that vast city where he felt at peace with himself and with the world. If he lost the hallway and its solitude he would surely lose himself.
It was during the preparatory phase of the demolition that he decided to resist the city’s plan. He came to view not only the hallway as his own, but also the two buildings that it connected. They were his alone and he would decide their ultimate fate and purpose whether the city and its people agreed with him or not. But in his irrational state he chose a more violent method of resistance, stockpiling handguns and rifles and arraying them strategically throughout the two buildings. If worst came to worst he would retreat to the connecting hallway and make his final stand. But whatever the outcome those structures would be his.
As dawn of the first day of work came about he found himself resting lazily in front of a third story window, a high-powered rifle in hand. He watched intently as men in yellow hard hats wandered around the grounds, pointing and talking amongst themselves. They moved casually, unaware of his presence in the building, going about their duties with the simple diligence of workingmen. But to the shooter in the window their presence bore nothing but death. They were demons to him, subhuman creatures stomping about his sacred land. Grinding his teeth, he fidgeted with the scope on his rifle, loosening and tightening the windage knob without any real knowledge to its purpose. He glared at them with such violent hatred that it aught to have betrayed his presence.
There were two men directing the other workers who grabbed his attention. Their gesticulations disgusted him, looking more like grotesque pantomiming of a sword removing a human’s head. He decided to start with those two men and lifted his scope hurriedly, laying the crosshair of the scope on the one to the right. Through the scope he could make out their details better, their buttoned white shirts, colorful ties, and their neatly pressed pants. They were not of the same breed as the workingmen around them and seemed full of arrogant pride and excess. It only served to increase his hatred towards them and the entire affair.
As he watched them turn their heads every which way, exchanging unheard words and chuckling to each other, he did his best to steady the crosshair on the head of the man to the right. His heart began to thump wildly and his hands began to shake making the scope tremble heavily. He cursed to himself and tried to steady the rifle but was only able to decrease the scope’s movement slightly. Finally resigning himself to his state of excitement he took a deep breath and pulled the trigger. With a loud clap he sent his first round tearing down towards the clueless man and watched as a thick film of dust flew up in a sudden explosion, to the right and behind the man. The shooter shouted in shock and quickly brought his scope to bear again and saw the two men looking about themselves, slightly bewildered. They apparently had not registered the fact that they were being shot at, perhaps because of the nature of their workplace. But as the second shot blew forth and another geyser of dust flew up they immediately took off running.
The man in the window was sweating profusely now and screamed wildly as he watched his second round go wide. He raised the rifle and threw it violently against the wall, then sprinted to a room where he had placed another gun, positioning himself in the window and scanning his killing field. By this time everyone had caught on to what was transpiring and had disappeared into whatever hiding place they could find. He was alone again with only the occasional hint of life out beyond his window. Collapsing on the floor, tears began to well out of his eyes, although quietly. He stared at the floor and watched the grain of the wood slowly snake along, abruptly ending where a new panel commenced. He sought out a pattern across the panels but it was all disjointed, a hodgepodge of muted colors and lines that suddenly became emblematic of his world. It was a world of disjointed and singular parts that somehow expressed unity through shared forms, fitting together neatly to create a whole. And as the adrenaline began to release it’s hold on him he found himself dozing off where he sat, tired and full of emotion.
Just as he was about to slip into sleep the bright, alternating blue and red lights of law enforcement personnel filled his empty room. This was the end of the road for him, being too tired to put up any more resistance. The idea of harming someone now seemed utterly reprehensible to him and he felt slightly sick. He wanted to go home now but that was no longer an option. His fate had been sealed, and so he wearily picked himself up and walked through the building as the sirens from outside echoed around him.
Almost without thought he made his way down to the hallway, arriving there with the ragged aura of a pilgrim at the end of his journey. He stood quietly and observed the hallway. It seemed mundane now, utterly devoid of any interest, a drab composition of weathered bricks and mortar. Despite his efforts to reignite that wondrous passion he had felt before it remained as such. So he collapsed, and awaited the police.
Spirit from before
He had not been sleeping well, which was unusual for him. Ever since he could remember he had slept like a rock, even sleeping through a minor earthquake during a family trip. He had woken up in the morning to nervous questions from his mother.
“Did you feel it? What did you think?”
“Feel what?” he had responded.
So the unease he was experiencing every night was all the more curious, an unease punctuated not by sweats and fitful dreams but the feeling that he was not alone, that he was being watched. On waking in the mornings he would lie in bed with his eyes open, processing the unease and trying to wrest every last moment of respite from the previous evening.
Throughout the workweek, when he had finally removed himself from his bed, he would make his way through the city, stepping on and off trams until he arrived at his office. The city was expansive, dotted with shops, restaurants, parks, and cafes. People were always about, running from one point to another, chatting amongst themselves, smiling, frowning, standing. He enjoyed the life of this landscape yet he somehow felt disconnected. Not only from the city but also from the world at large. It was all foreign to him in some way, making him feel like he did not entirely belong. He almost felt like a runner, as if he were constantly moving away from something rather than integrating with his surroundings.
“I miss you.”
The words were slightly muffled, almost imperceptible. He opened his eyes just enough to peer through his interlocked eyelashes but did not see anything. He lay there for a moment thinking of the words. They resounded clearly in his memory, surprisingly articulated, even for a dream. But anything was possible in those moments of deep sleep. He rolled over on to his side and took a deep breath then slowly worked his way out from under the covers.
I miss you. As the day continued it was unclear whether the words were a part of a memory or a dream, they drifting back and forth between the two states in his mind. But as the day drew to an end and the weeks went by he slowly forgot about the words. The constant rush of the city forced them out, replacing them with the corporeal needs of humanity. The modern lights rose then fell, the skies changed, the leaves rustled and transformed from greens to the festive colors of autumn. It all passed quickly and without note.
As the cold winds of winter began to blow in, the unease returned. Once again he found himself awake in bed at the cusp of dawn, the quiet words reverberating in his memory. I miss you. I miss you. He could not figure out why those words continued to fall on him while he slept, why they seemed so clear and why it all was so familiar. The voice was one of a woman, a voice that pierced him and made him long for a memory or a feeling he could not quite place.
“I miss you.”
He would sit up and gaze about his room but there was never anything there. It was almost as if he was perpetually late to arousing, and his frustration began to increase as each visit would go by.
“I miss you.”
He jolted awake. It was cold outside now that winter had fully set in. The lights of the city still shown at full force, not yet having been replaced by the burning of the sun. But something was different now. The room appeared misty, as if it had suddenly birthed a creek in a warm spring morning. Sitting in his bed he looked around trying to figure out if this was a dream or if he was really awake. It felt much too real, not in a frightening way but still slightly disconcerting. And then he noticed the figure by his side, although at first it was not clear what it was.
He could hardly make out details, but as he gazed at it he began to notice human-like characteristics. There were locks of ghostly hair draped lightly around what appeared to be a head and he could just make out the slim profile of arms and hands. The figure did not move much, if at all, and although he could not make out eyes he had the distinct feeling of being gazed upon.
“Why did you leave me?” came the soft words.
“What?” he blurted out, a rhetorical response yet full of confusion. Without responding the apparition dissipated, leaving him sitting in his bed.
After lunch that day he made his way to a small corner café and sat down to think about the morning’s visit. Those last words haunted him more than ever. Who was visiting him? What was she talking about? Nothing of what was occurring seemed rational to him, it all being beyond his normal range of experiences. His thoughts drifted to the idea of a spirit of a deceased acquaintance, maybe a family member or a lover. He had lost many members of his family but this did not seem to be something related to that. He had also had several girlfriends but none of them had died, at least not to his knowledge. Even if one had passed recently he could not think of one who would make a point of visiting him.
What struck him the most, however, was his lack of fear. In fact he could have sworn feeling a tiny bit of warmth emanating from himself while in her presence. Why did he feel so calm, so at home? Why was she so familiar?
It was not until the following spring was coming to a close that she visited him again in such an overt manner. During that time he had become consumed with the thoughts of her words, and everyday his world seemed to become less and less real. It was all far more foreign now, the structures, the people, the lights, all of it. Everything seemed at odds with him, somehow petty and without purpose. He would walk about during the day and gaze at his surroundings like a child reborn, trying to process everything that filled his senses. At times he would simply stand in place in semi-catatonia as the world moved about him. He almost felt like he was playing a game where nothing was true, where everything was just an expression of the imagination, fooling him for lord knew what reason.
Then one warm, spring evening he had been awoken by a soft breeze flowing through his room. He had an inkling that she had returned and he slowly sat up, immediately finding her by his bedside. She was still as ghostly as before.
“Why did you leave me?” She still seemed sad, her words flowing over him with the soft touch of a lover. He could only sit and look at her in wonderment, trying to make out the contours of her body through the ephemeral pulsing of her mist.
“Who are you?” he asked quietly.
There was silence, he sitting there looking at an outstretched hand.
“Please come back. I miss you.”
The lonely king
High atop a snow-capped mountain lived a hermit in a small cottage. Isolated from the world, gnawed at by the teeth of the frigid high altitude winds, he tended to his small fire outside of his home. He lived at the summit of the tallest mount from which he could look in all four compass directions; over the green forests, beyond the orange deserts, across the teal oceans, into the grey cities. He was a king on a polar white thrown high above the rest of the world.
Day after day the hermit would take a seat by the small fire and ensure its survival. He had lit it years ago upon his arrival to his kingdom but, having consumed all his fodder, had been forced to slowly peel away materials from his humble cottage. Not having a means to reignite his small flame he was forced to remain vigilant to its continued burning. As the years went by the fire remained and his abode slowly dwindled.
One evening, as the hermit silently made his way to the cottage and chipped away some tinder to feed the fire, he was suddenly struck by the state of his home. He gazed momentarily at its diminished form, its now unrecognizable shape. Recalling its gradual decent through his even-paced and orderly weathering he found himself presented with a great paradox. In the gradual death of his home, a death that was robbing him of his sanctuary from the elements and portending the end of his own life, his home had evolved, changed, found new form and expressed new meaning. In its gradual death new life had been brought forth in the form of an ever-changing piece of art.
Yet he was the only one to have witnessed the slow transformation, the changing forms. He stared intently, surveying the finality of his work, seeing the careful yet unconscious cuts that had torn his home down. He reminisced about the shapes his home had taken as he cut it apart, the curves that were born, the sharp minarets and dagger like wooden stalagmites. The light of the sun had refracted from the icy snow and cast haunting and captivating shadows on its meandering surfaces. It, his home, had breathed, shifted uneasily yet gracefully, as he had gone about his life. He had unconsciously witnessed the great rending of the mornings form and witnessed the final birth of a new form at nightfall.
So his days had gone, witnessing yet not knowing, aware but not cognizant. The great irony of the world, its indefinable nature, had been lost on him until now. Yet he had seen it. For those last fleeting days of his life he tended to that knowledge as he tended to his flame. And as it quietly sputtered out, its warmth and light dissipating into a lonely landscape, so did his wisdom.
On writing personal journals and some other only slightly elucidated existential questions revolving around the subject of writing
Every writer seems to say the same thing: just write. They say, “don’t worry about the final product, just get your words down and move on from there. In that manner you become accustomed to writing regularly and you also develop your technique.” I have trouble doing this because of my need to give purpose to everything, because of my desire to have a perfect product without any of the rigors of the through journey. I am setting those concerns aside right now to not only improve my writing, but also to lift my boredom. This boredom of mine is destroying me, making me feel the full impact of my existential musings because I just can’t think of something worthwhile to do. But I intend to avoid the self-pitying so common of myself in my depressed and anxious state. I have become disillusioned by the realization that I am not at all unique in my “suffering”. I am just one more distraught soul feeling I have the entirety of the inspired spirit within me.
Anyway, to return to writing about matters other than depression, I will consider the merits of writing diary-like, stream of consciousness entries. It seems just as shallow to me, and as pointless, as posting infinitesimally edited clips of yourself talking about some subject on YouTube. I find the individuals who do that lacking in any true talents as their words are spliced together opportunistically to present the viewer with the desired image of themselves and for achieving the desired effect. But I suppose writing is no different. This is an entirely random thought, though.
Back to the question of writing to oneself. What benefit does it confer? To answer that question it is necessary to determine what the desired outcome is. Writing, especially through blogging and other published mediums, is done for the “others”. It is written to be presented and validated by “externals”, thus providing the writer with a sense of self-worth which may or may not be substantiated or valid. In that sense it has a very explicit purpose, one of integrating the writer with the world at large and fueling her or his ego.
But what happens when a writer writes on his or her own on a medium that only he or she has access to? What purpose does the writing serve, then? It almost feels like you are writing redundancies, speaking out loud your own thoughts and then trying to swallow them again in some perverted, cannibalistic circle of philosophical “linguism”. Are you writing to yourself to understand yourself? Are you writing to yourself to release yourself? Either way, what good does it do to place words on paper that are only meant for your eyes? You already know everything that is being written! It is not as if you are enlightening yourself, you are just regurgitating your thoughts and then consuming them in an endless, egotistical cycle. Your thoughts go nowhere. But do you go nowhere, as well?
It is with that question that I return to the initial writers statement of “just write”. I suppose there is the possibility of chancing upon a moment of clarity or inspiration that appears to come from somewhere else, even though the words are written by your hand. Then it is for those moments that one ought to write to themselves, for in the endless stream of spat out crud there might appear a small jewel, a surprising combination of words whose origin is not sure but which you can claim as your own. But now I wonder, what good do those “jewels” do you? In what way do they validate you, for lack of a better expression. This is most definitely becoming more and more existential.
Let’s use a hypothetical situation to sort these thoughts out. Let us imagine a being locked away in a barren cube with only a never-ending supply of writing materials. This being begins to write his thoughts, continuously for all eternity. Through his diaries he comes to elucidate on the entirety of his existence within that cube. He understands everything there is to understand, answers all the questions he can possibly ask. Yet at the end of the day, despite all his knowledge and all his writing, he is still just some dude alone in a box for all eternity. What good do all his efforts do? Make him infinitely wiser? To what end? How does that serve him? How does it make him a more valid and substantial being?
I suppose this is the conundrum I face when sitting down to write to myself, ostensibly to lift my boredom. If I write a journal, what the hell kind of good does it do if it doesn’t leave the confines of my perceptions?
This is all assuming, of course, that the only valid human entity is the social human entity. That consideration is inescapable considering how numerous we are and how inclined we are to sociality. So, is the only thing of worth that which affects society? Or can you amass knowledge and inspiration though journal writing and still have some form of existential merit?
Then, of course, there is the question of what the final social outcome is supposed to be. Let us assume that all writing, all action for that matter, ought to be done in the name of furthering humanity, whatever that is supposed to be. Let us say furthering humanity means ensuring the continued comfort and survival of all human beings. So in this sense, any writing should be done to positively or negatively affect humanity by increasing well-being or removing discomfort, respectively. What a noble cause! What a noble effort! But if that is the case, then personal journals are utterly useless as they do not extend themselves to the world at large. So I suppose that the ultimate point of writing is to be read by others, for better or for worse.
Additionally, it seems that no matter which you way you turn, writing, at least in the form I am doing it, is inherently an egotistical matter. This makes me wonder if what I am choosing to do really has any value in a world that is so tightly woven together by disparate yet communicating and interacting parts. Does my writing contribute to the world in any meaningful way?
It appears that my initial question about the merits of writing to oneself has morphed into a question of the merits of opinion pieces on potentially trivial matters. Do such “op eds” have any real world value? Do they have any existential value?
To think that I began this as a means to overcome my boredom and desperation, without any endgoal in sight. It’s incoherent I think, yet slightly engaging. And best of all, my desperation and boredom has been lifted! Now replaced, however, with a smug yet admittedly dubious sense of intellectuality. From one extreme to the other. Which one is valid?
My speeding ticket is a confound
By Freud, what have we here!
A confound?
Oh please, go away!
My experiment’s gone awry,
My mission is lost,
I am left with a ticket,
My data is skewed by a thousand,
Now all but lost,
Way past my standard of deviation
And my tiny little alpha.
No tricks of the mind can foil the officer,
No implanted memories,
No misleading methods,
Will lower it to naught.
(undated)
On “realizing dreams”
The world holds approximately seven billion human beings, and each human being holds an unfathomable number of dreams. And just as the world has finite resources and space with which to accommodate these human beings, so does it have a finite number of opportunities for those dreams to be realized. How then do we each face this uncertainty, this looming possibility that our lives will never materialize to what we hope them to be, while others steal our hopes and live out their years in seeming bliss? Are many of us doomed to possible failure, or are we not approaching life, with all its complexities and nuances, in the appropriate manner? Perhaps we are missing the point of life. Perhaps in pursuing a dream, whether attainable or not, we are ignoring the truth that surrounds us, and the beauty that it offers. Or perhaps our lives are simply dreams to begin with.
Freedom through imprisonment
Floating on air, he gazed smiling out the small opening of his prison. Beyond the glass was a world, vast and awe-inspiring. Its tranquility pervaded the open skies, reaching both down to the earth and up to the heavens, seeping into his heart and filling him with joy. He became lost, utterly and peacefully lost in the soft hues that made his vision. Purples, oranges, blues and whites all combined and played to create a great ocean of vistas unimaginable in any other context. He was calm and fair, he had finally escaped.
The observer
Hallow ground is trodden by weary feet, toes curled to the earth as they sluggishly make their way to the catacombs. It is a dreary day with a light drizzle dancing softly on the headstones. Not much is heard aside from the deep breaths heaving in and out of the solemn walkers. They all slowly make their way in one general direction, yet the course they follow seems haphazard at best. But for the one who sits alone on the tree stump it is quite a spectacle. What a joy to behold!
Someone stops momentarily and the young observer holds his breathe. What will this person do? What is his purpose? Oh the anticipation! But that observer is sorely disappointed when the meditator snaps to and continues on, without a hint to new life.
Such a life might seem dull, simply sitting in one location and doing nothing but observing. But there are definite rewards, like when an overturned casket was assaulted by thieving crows. The body was consumed in minutes, the family pulling at their hair in disbelief. He had remained on his stump throughout the family’s ordeal and grinned.
“How amusing!” he had thought to himself, “What a grand spectacle!”
He had listened, one sunny afternoon, as the groundskeeper had methodologically gone from empty plot to empty plot calling out names.
“Here shall lie the Mayor, who in his grandiosity consumed all!
“Here shall lie the pretty whore, who succumbed to her own vices!
“Here shall lie the schoolboy, who lost himself to his naivety!”
“What a prophet!” the observer had thought to himself, “I hope that I too one day will bear his gift!”
On another cold midnight, he had watched as two foxes bound from stone to stone. They sniffed, they marked, they played, and then disappeared into the darkness of the woods.
“What freedom!” the observer had exclaimed in wonderment, “I hope that I too will be wild and free someday!”
Little did the observer know that he was a prophet, and wild and free. That truth was hidden to him, whose only focus was on the world around him. He had little understanding of himself.
But in moments as the one of the procession, there was little need to consider one’s existence. So much could be gleaned, if only for amusement, from the lives of others. The world truly was a grand spectacle!
Ode to the Poet
Look at you,
Standing on your soapbox,
Singing your verses with an eloquent arrogance,
With a voice so full of emotion,
Or the lack thereof.
What makes you believe that your are gifted
Beyond all reality and all humanity?
You are nothing but the same as I,
And the men to your sides.
Your poems are a cry, a lamentation
To a disillusionment felt by all others.
You sit in the center of a semicircle reading your poems
To an eager and sympathetic crowd of liars and fools.
Still, your poetry will amount to nothing,
Be stacked on a bookshelf, if you are even given that honor.
And even if you manage to transcend the annals of time,
Schoolboys will read your poems,
Then burn the books.
3/6/07
Life is a bitch, or Life’s bitch?
“I cannot do it.” was his only reply. “I simply cannot do it. I know you have asked me time and time again to move forward with it, but it is utterly impossible.” She looked at him sternly, her arms crossed tightly across her bosom. She was relentless, sometimes shrieking, other times hitting. He had pulled away when possible but it was difficult to escape her ravings. Once again he found himself cowering in the corner as she stood towering over him. He felt helpless, yet he did not cry. He tried to reason with her, as he had done many times before, but it never seemed to work. She would simply lash out at him. It was as if she screamed out, “Emotion, you fool! Emotion! Emotion! Emotion! Nothing but emotion!” A few days ago he had raised his voice and ventured: “But I think there is more to this than just emotion. Will you at least consider the possibility?” Oh, what torrential anger she unleashed on him for his candor. She had wailed and lashed with such ferocity that he nearly fainted through sheer terror. When he came to she had taken a seat across the room, but she was still poised to continue the assault. So he sunk back into the corner and waited, thinking. It seemed as if today would end in very much the same fashion. She was not as vicious yet her cold stare portended a greater fury. So he quieted down and went back to thinking.
don't listen to me. 