You fail to avoid an old coworker on street, and just shake your head in greeting. It’s been that kind of year.

I’d rather be here, with you, for the worst that could happen, than anywhere else, for the best.

Poor kid, starting to look like her father.

The evenings are black and the mornings cold and grey. The only way forward is through it.

He was currently drinking a fine “blended whisky”—mixed bottom-of-bottle dregs of bourbon, vodka, vermouth, and fernet-branca.

The word practice—cultivating a veneer of respectability while retaining the frisson of artistic endeavor.

This was the day he realized everything was a bonus.

Normally he anticipated this cold black season with dread, but this year it suited him. It was what he deserved. He was locked in for the siege.