The White Visitation

Leon walked into the crosshatched room light of the general store and pulled out the gun. Then everything in front of him smudged. Fucking weird. Thanks to the crystal meth damage or something. Or that’s how he explained the effect. Like aftershocks in the eyes. Nothing he could do about it. So he held up the gun, stuck it way out in front of him. It got totally lost in the smudge. But the clerk saw it, didn’t he? Yeah, uh-huh. ‘Cos loose change sorta sprayed across the countertop. Greasy coins, a few dollar bills that disintegrated like lint when he grabbed them. Wiped the loot into his knapsack, missed one stupid nickel. Noticed it lying there. Shit. Don’t know why he even thought to retrieve it. But he was prying it up. Or attempting to. Greasy little thing. And it hit him. How the light had gone dead. Just like that, just as vague as that sounded. Not just gone out of the nickel. It was too fucking hard to describe. Shitty fantasies. Fucking crystal meth. Concentrate. Gone out of the venture, the love, sex, murder, Satanism, robberies, okay? Like that. So he handed his gun to the clerk, and said, Fuck it.

—Period by Dennis Cooper

But who are you? You are not from the castle, you are not from the village, you aren’t anything.

—Franz Kafka

Unfathomable mind: now beacon, now sea.

—Samuel Beckett