a tight cloud of a friday evening. at this point he picked up what looked like the oddest bottle among the oddest bottles and he carried it home and straight from the freezer he drank a bit of its content, mixed with his favorite pieces of animal sliced so thinly that he could almost see the landscape from which the poor thing was taken to be turned into delicious pieces of m..eat. and all this on a friday. fridays were days for fish, he said. this was no fish by any means. though he had eaten fish for lunch, right next to those odd people who buy factories because they look good on a napkin. the shoemaker was of the very respectful kind this evening. he even asked, in russian, how much the shoes were, which were given to him, never worn, chosen to be protected by some metal pieces positioned just in the right places. (he just wanted to finally end that shoe story thing.) - potchemu, eto charoshye tooflyee? - da, nu da, otchen, otchen haroshye. "what is this game you are playing," somebody asked today. "it is a game about nothing," he replied. "so what is the point?," the other person asked. there was no point to any of this, of course. neither to the game nor to the person playing, nor to the reality the game was so cutely representing. the drink tasted like fresh landfill juice. delicious. he never knew that gin had more poison in it than vodka. a whole 4% more. could this be? and how about those peanuts? and how about that dutch cheese that was almost old enough to know how to read. it is still bright outside. and yet there is a cloud of indifference now very tightly spun around his head. thank god it is. oh, thank God it is indeed.