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Life is pain.

Life is pain.

Things cannot get better.

No, they probably won’t.

And they could get worse in ways both our generation and the remnants of the previous have never ever encountered.

Famine.

Or maybe just discomfort.

I think people are feeling discomfort, are you?

I will soon.

What sort of discomfort?

Rent increase.

Well that’s a particular kind of discomfort. But you still have food.

I think so. Like the hot dog truck outside.

I ate there.

No.

It will always be there.

And you’ll still have gummies.

It sounds like you’re making fun of me.

No, I’m serious. I think in some ways as the world gets worse there are better ways to cope. Tastier ways to cope.

I’ll pay more on gummies.

They’re not so expensive. I’m at the point where I can lose my life for three hours every night for very little.

But I don’t want to lose my life.

You want experience?

Of sorts.

Pain.

I couldn’t live in a constant haze.

I’ve nearly made that possible.

After work.

Mostly after work.

At work?

Not in a profound way.

Right now?

No. Sometimes off the paint fumes. You’re not serious. I have used once or twice the equipment I had. Not in a serious way. More as a throwback and more of a counter to all the perfectly orchestrated ways I can obliterate myself with the usual substances. Paint fumes from our pain? I used to do it all the time. Paint. As things got worse, remind yourself we might be the last generation to huff. I don’t think that’s true. There’s huffing that goes on everywhere. Not everywhere. There’s a lot of huffing that still goes on. But we transition. We move to clean energy. It becomes tougher to be a gas huffer. And you choose. I huff once in a while at work in the same way someone would wear a nostalgic t-shirt. It’s not the same. When? I don’t know. Different times. We get slow times. I know. I don’t think you do actually know. We get these times when there’s like an ill wind that blows down the aisle. Ruffles the old shirts. Flicks over the paint samples. We have times that are dead slow. You can hear faraway hockey scores. You can hear someone breathing over in housewares. I love it when this place becomes somnambulant. When you huff you start to see how much energy is potential in each piece of hardware. I’ve been stoned in here once. When? You didn’t notice. When it was slow? Dead slow. And it was negativity. I stood over there near the saw tools and I imagined news of a crisis. What kind? What kind do you need? Something happened. Saltwater took over or an earthquake or the breakdown. The final hatred of polarized groups. Something happened and the doors were open and people were pouring in. Pouring everyone. Digging for cash from hidden places from their money belts whatever because they didn’t want to be that person at the till tapping a credit card again and again even though it was dead. And you know how the cashiers would be. They’re fragile at the best of times. In tears you know trying to make change and trying to make mental calculations tearing at cardboard tubes of coins unable to handle the aggravation. Gas? What? You hadn’t been having gas right? No it was weed. A gummy? A large snake gummy. You hate the snake? I didn’t know how to section the snake. It sounds like a very effective way to cope. No I wasn’t coping. I was seeing too much. I was envisioning the breakdown of Western society. I guess you could have cut the snake in half. I guess I should have. Do you want a gummy? Yeah I kind of do after all this talk.