...but I could not sleep without proper covering and spent the rest of the night rewriting lost arguments from my past, altering history so that I emerged victorious.

I lay in the dark thinking about the difficulties of family, how crazy and crooked the stories of a bloodline can be.

You put a wage behind something, it gives the act a sort of respectability.

I will admit he is unusual, but that is perhaps the closest I could come to complimenting him.

Luck was something you either earned or invented through strength of character. You had to come by it honestly; you could not trick or bluff your way into it.

Work will drive you crazy if you let it.

Your skin is prickly from fatigue and pain and there is a hissing in your ears. Time passes and the pills are taking hold like a glowing white planet coming into view. A reverse eclipse. And you watch with your eyes closed. The white planet is half exposed, it grips your heart in its light and seems to be pulling you forward and now you feel that you are falling. You are awake but dreaming. "The earth is not beautiful but the universe is," you say.