So—this stupid word that people use to introduce something to which they wish to give extra heft,

So.

“As you know, a new crisis must be engineered, potential unrest, indeed, that is before the surveillance tools can be fully utilized and linked to private security operations, before all citizens can be documented and the point system establishes itself…”

“Would you be so kind as to tell us something we don’t yet know?”

Thome’s father interrupts the

SWEATING MAN

ANXIETY DISORDER: worm phobia

SEXUALITY: obsessed

FINANCIAL STATUS: not creditworthy b/c of compulsive gambling

Who is in his early forties, and who has a breathtaking career as spin doctor, internet strategist, and campaign advisor

behind him

And is now a crisis manager. He features, promotes, and markets crises, and though they’re the constant state of the world, one isn’t permitted to sell them as the normal state of things; they must rather be used, focused on, highlighted in order to—feature their core brand value.

Though there had never been an even-keeled, calm, wonderful life. The calm, peaceful life is an invention of the advertising industry to fuel the economy, to sell diapers and all that shit in order to keep the people quiet, whose natural instinct is to run through the streets plundering and savagely killing game. Or other people. Or just breaking shit. This instinct needs to be channeled into profitable avenues. “It’s no bed of roses,” says the sweating man whenever he is asked about his profession.

Having spent recent years working abroad—the sweating man never refers to his clients by name—during which he had rebranded Islamic terror, in part by curating attacks himself and coordinating the entire press relations operation in order to fuel the deterioration of the European economic zone, in order to boost Brexit and the defense industry—yes, it was just as dull as you can imagine when you’re sitting on the toilet—there is now a new domestic project lined up. The sweating man has no reason to feel bad or guilty, because people need a bogeyman, it intensifies their lust for life. Awareness of the peril of the evolutionary fight for survival fine-tunes the intensity of their lives. Treat every second like it is the last. But