His electricity was shut off for non-payment on the hottest night of the year. The beer and vodka would stay cold for a few more hours. He held a bottle against his forehead and gave thanks for this small miracle.

At the time it felt catastrophic, but in retrospect it was a golden era.

Work that withholds its methods or motives, or is a result of a process unrelated to the final result, or has a clever title that provokes in the viewer an unexpected reassessment, or which through a brutal economy of means affects a disproportionate response, or is so unapologetically stupid that it makes intelligence, craft or elegance seem frivolous.

Over the years the simple act of finding the precise words had seemed to mitigate his inner collapse. But they weren’t the right words; he’d been a fool.

Affliction and disease present the greatest advertising opportunity in the history of mankind.

Look at you, still believing in your shit.

As he spoke, her expression passed through every shade of sadness, distaste, anger, disappointment, irritation, contempt, pity, dismissal. Somewhere along the way he’d lost her respect, if he’d ever had it, and couldn’t find his way back.

Self-loathing had almost cured him of hubris.

For the past three weeks he’d remained in his apartment, reliving old humiliations and hate-watching Love Actually. Rent was due tomorrow. His thoughts, increasingly, centered on death, disaster, failure, madness. But mostly he was just scared.
Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee.