The distortion of image and the misrepresentation or reinterpretation of natural images felt like they were coming from his own head. He had no distance from them, no objectivity. No clarity, no separation, they became one mass of pain and chaos and his brain told him he looked like the faces, that it was his way of seeing the world, that he had had a hand in these creations. That he was responsible for the distortion, the ugliness, it had become revolting to him, what everyone else was interpreting as having captured a magical beauty and magnificence and a fresh view of the world. For Ever, it was like he had always lived like this, there were too many in the one space, as big as it was, he felt the sweat soak the back of his shirt, hoping it didn’t pierce through his jacket, he was glad to have the wheelchair to support him, he searched for Lomita’s hand, she had already sensed his turbulence, transferring comfort with both hands. He wanted to rip all the shit off the walls. How could anyone else see the world like he did? He understood the artist should be dead, you couldn’t paint like this and be alive, you couldn’t come this close to infantilising the world into sub-primitive form and get away with it. It was genius all wrong, they shouldn’t be here, these people, he shouldn’t be here, this was wrong. He left Lomita and went outside to breathe the air, look at the normal, and make sure his brain hadn’t left him for good. He wanted the world back, not the one according to Basquiat, but according to God, or to anyone who didn’t see it as he knew it to be, like this man had shown it. This was insane, hell on a wall. He knew, in that moment, as yet more vomit left his mouth and hit the pavement, missing his aim for the gutter, that there had been something seriously wrong with this man, that no one should paint like that, and if they did they should keep it to themselves. He was gone to the best place, this artist, the only place he could be in comfort, the only place anyone who saw the world like that could be. They had to be dead.

That was it.

Death.

And Ever, in his subsequent thought, understood he saw the world like that too.

Ever was, of course, being taken for a stupid idiot who had pigged himself on the free champagne and was having a chunder.