I’m a great guy the guy said. He said it like he had only just realized it. I’m a great guy and that’s a fact he said. I’m a great guy for sure and so maybe I should do something about it – maybe I should write a book or start a blog or get my own YouTube channel going. Why – I’m a great guy! said the guy, as if he had only just realized it. As if he had only just now been struck by the fact. As if he had only just now been struck by the magnitude of his own destiny.  Naturally it was his own destiny – he would hardly have been struck in this way by the magnitude of someone else’s destiny! Although he could have been. But probably not. He’d been eating away at the apple, you see. Nibbling away at it. Stuffing his face with it more like. Boy was he making a meal of that old apple. That old old apple. Apple pie and custard. Apple crumble and a big old dollop of best Jersey cream. How do you like those apples boy said the man. Why I like them just fine I replied although they do taste very bad. And they make me as sick as a dog. As sick as an old dog puking up in the street. Probably something he ate – something sickeningly rancid, something disgustingly filthy, something terribly terribly unclean. You know what dogs are like – they’d happily eat shit. How do you like those apples buddy asked the man. Why I like them just fine I replied – I think I’ll put them in a crumble. But I think they’ve been contaminated with something nasty. Maybe they’ve been injected with something. Industrial effluent, or one of the new agricultural pesticides perhaps. Or thorium salts. Some unforeseen side-effect of civilization; some new wonder-drug that hasn’t been properly tested yet. Something designed by the big corporations to help us. Because the big corporations always want to help us. Their CEOs like awake at night thinking of ways that they might best benefit the world. Make their fellow man happier. Ease our collective burden. They lie awake at night overcome by their empathy for the suffering human race. Designing new ways to benefit mankind. Thinking of new and better ways to hide razor blades in apples. Thinking of new and better forms of industrial effluence. Whatever it was it was making me sick – I was vomiting in the street like an old dog. How do you like those apples barked the barker. He was barking out disjointed syllables like a Gatling gun. Firing them out there. Sharing them with a world that doesn’t care and never will. I’m a great guy said the guy as I walked by him on the street. Never a greater. It was as if it were the first time that it had struck him.