He hid behind the shredded ransom notes scoured from the bins of petty discordance and trifling vendettas, the sheets of tired vengeance bred out of envy and spite that he still meticulously taped together with careful fingers, terrified the papers would rip into even smaller pieces and then the whole collage of his painstakingly precise craftsmanship in the chiseling of perfect standards, of demanding personas, of unrealistic expectations, would all blow up with the august winds and dissipate into nothing, putting an end to to the addiction he had brewed out of simple worries and his old, old fear of loneliness.
But his eyesight is worsening, his nerves are deteriorating, and I do not think that he can do this forever, pleasing for the sake of others, when his own heart is so brittle, so weak, so dying…