Fuck him; sorry for him; laughter; comeuppance; hatred; compassion; relief; a strike for the people; sorry for the wife; for the family; joy; celebration; achievement; success.

The last two would have at one time carried the most connection for him, the appreciation of a job done, but now, he felt the foulnesss of having polluted himself with his thoughts, thoughts that had permeated into another person’s brain.

A parasitical involvement.

That’s what he had wanted.

Osmotic dependency.

And now. Now he had infested Lomita’s brain and those parasites had multiplied to the point of total colonisation.

Ever felt at this moment in a bar in San José that he should not be alive.

He tried to fix on his obsessional hatred for the man who initiated his father’s collapse toward death, for some respite at least; but felt only the guilt oozing through the cracks. He didn’t attempt to wipe it away.

This was going to cause the death of Lomita: he would be the cause of the death of Lomita.

He downed the shot of tequila.

Eventually the police would make their way down here to check out where the paintings were ordered to be delivered by the woman who was the last to have lunch with Mr Lorken. Lomita Nairn.

He drank the Corona in one sustained hold of breath.

Days. Hours. Minutes. A lifetime of seconds.

He ordered a second round.

He thought of Clarissa and Jacob and envied their ignorance of the circumstance.

But he was completely unable to communicate in any form.

He wondered if he ever could, or would, again.

*

His night came to an early end.

He walked down to the taxi rank by the Pemex gas station and the start of the bridge across to the East Cape; he took a taxi to the waiting osprey. Thirty-five minutes later he was paying the man, walking towards the house with the intention of sitting by the ocean and having a final tequila for the night. The osprey whistled and flapped its wings; Ever attempted a whistle back but the dryness on his lips made it sound feeble and ungenerous. A sad musical call, a failed response to the clear warmth of the bird. He was dried up and at the end.

He sat on the terrace with his drink; his head fell back at an angle, facilitating his look at the stars.

The moonlight takes 1.3 seconds to reach us, some of the stars are still there and burning, but some died when Ancient Rome was in its heyday – their light is only reaching us now. Ever could never grasp this, his mind would not take it in; like infinity, it was a concept that defeated his already defeated brain.

But he had to count a hundred stars before he could go to bed.

A hundred stars a hundred times. It got worse the longer he sat. The stars would have a problem with this concept.