Thinks his clothes are tasteful. He’d had his thoughts. There are too many people on earth, it randomly occurs to the journalist. He has good shots of the corpse. Of the plastic bag, the video on the wall of the office tower. So, back home. To his father’s flat. On Regent’s Park. Actually just a room. In the cellar. Nobody awaits him at the flat. Except for his father, who is dead. The journalist doesn’t have the means to have his father buried. He hasn’t had the time to bury him on his own in the park. So his father is in a cabinet, well packed in plastic. Beyond his wardrobe, his computer, and a mattress, there’s nothing else in the flat. A lightbulb hangs from the ceiling and food scraps are stuck to the floor in front of the kitchenette. But it’s well kept. When he still had sexual desires, he strolled a few houses down at night to the villa of a Russian oligarch and his wife. The most beautiful woman he could imagine. She loved to walk naked back and forth past the window. Those images always sufficed for a week if he laid a hand on himself. But now. There are no more desires. Strictly out of curiosity one evening he goes toward Outer Circle. In front of the villa where the beautiful woman lives. The boxwoods gleam in the moonlight. They gleam as if polished, as if every leaf roller had been killed by hand. No light inside the building. All the blinds are closed tight. Well the family must have headed off to a summer resort. The journalist goes back to his room, where horns are growing from the wall and rows of ants troop through his bathroom, the toilet full of crusted excrement, the sink yellowed, a moldy pair of underwear on the floor. He hears Sinatra, which is invariably the sign of the complete vacuousness of middle-aged, white, kitschy men. But suddenly it is quiet.

Sinatra has disappeared—from the internet.

EX 2279

>++++++++++

[>++++++++++>+++++++++++++>++++++++++>+++++++++++>++++++++++>+++++++++++>+++++++++++><<<<<<<<-]

>++>—>->—>++++>——>->

<<<<<<<<

>.>.>.>.>.>.>.

“Don’t be afraid,”

Hears

PETER’S MOTHER

From various voice-activated devices in her flat. “Everything will be okay,

You needn’t be afraid.

Just don’t be afraid.”

But

Peter’s mother is afraid. Not yet the type of fear bordering on panic, because she doesn’t yet fully grasp the situation. That’s something agreeable about the human brain. It lets its owner maintain hope to the end, won’t accept when a situation is certifiably fucked.