His desk was nice, made of oak, covered in a cloth and decorated with a vase full of ashen-faced hydrangea blossoms begging the rubbish heap, but he held on to them. Papers were everywhere, the most of them crumpled, uncrumpled, recrumpled, till they lost all their form and became soft like silks. On them were written in awful red ink what he hoped for, loved to hate, and his fears. They looked like used bandages from an ER ward; he shoved them to the corner of the desk. The pen he wrote with was in fact the only pen he ever used, a red one, such that people accustomed to schooling must think his grocery lists looks like term marks. But he didn't know any people, not really. Only a portrait at his right hand admitted the existence of other humans.
Inside the little metal frame, his father looked stern as usual. He was wearing his uniform, studded with badges and regrets, mustache trimmed and combed. His eyes squinted like watermelon seeds and looked uncomfortable in their own sockets. He was terribly hung over, and hated, hated the photographer, hated every flash that hurt, hurt so god damn much. What the fuck was this little Asian man getting at, blinding him, scalding him? His retinas were branded like so many fucking cattle. Was he bovine, did he stomp and snort? Oh, yes, come suck at his tit, and he'll give you his best milk. Yes, fuck you, and you. Do you wash, do you bathe your cows? Do you feed them corn, the constipated bastards? Castrate them, hot knife, kill, cut, bake, chew, savor, swallow, transform into your flesh their deaths, make it good. Oh you sweaty fucking gook. Would steak sauce improve the dish?
Such a man was his father.
His significant glance shifted, fell on the King James Bible in front of him, spread open.
Psalm 34:8. O taste and see that the LORD is good.
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