The Middling
Jul 30, 2017 · 2 min read

Shhhh. Calm your mind. Don’t stir the embers.
But it’s too late. The pipebowl of his skull is glowing, smoky mantras coiling through his brain. All these little affirmations, these maxims and slogans that he has pitched to himself, over and over, sometimes written down with an urgent, confident hand, sometimes spoken aloud into the gloss of the bathroom mirror, sometimes recited silently with the precision and force of an incantation meant…


