Mr Htimsbackwards, my friend, perhaps even my conscience, perhaps my only friend and my only conscience, perhaps my soul, or myself even, perhaps. On a friday, or a monday. In any case, upon a day of the week. Your choice, this sordid question of day. Character description, the setting. As for a mood? Neither joyful nor mordant. Tension of a sort, a restlessness, dissatisfaction. Not dissatisfaction of a painful sort—rather a shapeless dissatisfaction at the margin. The margin of what? Of a mind, of a thought. Not of a soul, no no, not for us, soulless bastards both. Another word for restlessness, perhaps, this dissatisfaction. Mr Htimsbackwards, my friend, myself.

And the piss in the pants, forever the piss in the pants. Warm at first and then cold. But then again warm, the fresh piss after the old, warm after the cold. In the same way, word upon word, the hot word of anger, the cold word of reflection. Words. The feast of reason and the flow of piss. Glorious man, measure of all! Ho de anexetastos bios ou biôtos anthrôpôi. Anger, and ratiocination, body and mind, passion and reflection, the dialectic of warm piss and cold piss, hot words cold logic, subject and object, heavenandearth. The result, wisdom, if not outright philosophy.

Mr Htimsbackwards: The fucking news today!
Yours, truly: A goddamn outrage!
Mr Htimsbackwards: A goddamn outrage!
Mr Htimsbackwards: Ah, but.
Yours, truly: Oh well.
Mr Htimsbackwards: Hm, hm.
Yours, truly: Mm.

Too long without food and fuck. Ah, but the sun! The warm, warm sun, somewhere perhaps. A good idea, warm sun. A fine idea, that. And the swoosh of passing cars, also a fine idea. A hypnotic, narcotic swoosh. Men and women, each unto each, hand in hand, parkward. Or shopward, a matter of indifference, really. Sometimes man and man, sometimes woman and woman. Or other. Then the bark of children, the impatient pole-bound pug. A restlessness, the itchy balls, the close smell of Mr Htimsbackwards. An odor, even. Yes, a positive stench. No doubt of fart. Or, perhaps, a little bit of doubt. A shadow of doubt, but only a shadow.

Mr Htimsbackwards: What of the President?
Yours, truly: Of America?
Mr Htimsbackwards: Yes, dunderhead, of America! The Orange Menace? Mr Crusher?
Yours, truly: A jackass!
Mr Htimsbackwards: A goddamn outrage!
Yours, truly: Yes, but the piss!
Mr Htimsbackwards: The warm piss? Now?
Yours, truly: Yes, now. And, yes, the warm, after the cold.
Mr Htimsbackwards: Bravo, good man! Well done! Bravo!
Yours, truly: Merci, mon semblable, mon frère!

Ah, but the delicious stasis. And, better yet, the delicious motion! Motion, then stasis. Then stasis then motion. Then motion stasis stasis motion motion motion stasis motion stasis stasis stasis. A heavenly variety of stasis, with occasional motion. Never too much motion. Never too little stasis. The hours, of stasis and motion. Then the climax. Then, resolution. Then?

Then, tomorrow and tomorrow.

Mr Htimsbackwards: Ah, the warm!
Yours, truly: Now, my old boy? Now, for you, the warm?
Mr Htimsbackwards: Yes, my friend! Now for me the warm! As before, after the cold.
Yours, truly: Well done, old bugger!

The newspapers, forever the newspapers, with their infernal news. What madness! In my pants, the newspapers. The President, hot but then cold. News of death, by famine or by war, in my pants, and in the pants also of Mr Htimsbackwards, cold but then hot. For me national affairs, but for Mr Htimsbackwards world affairs. A hasty shove, hand into the pants, between the thighs and backupward into the crack of buttocks. There, just there, for the piss. A trick worthy of Kalashnikov. Then, the pissnews cold by noon but warm thereafter. And then cold. Today, Mr. Conrad Black, pisshot and then pisscold, pisscold and then pisshot, in the day’s important flow of piss. Tomorrow, who knows? Not I, good fellow.

Enough however of that. Instead, the warm sun, the infernal obstreperous child. The swoosh of cars, the impatient pug. And Mr Htimsbackwards, my conscience and my salvation and my friend, as myself even. And with a restlessness, a dissatisfaction, a shapeless nameless something on the margin of what, out into the world I. Yes, into a world.