It’s an everyday story of everyday folk, I began hesitantly. I was tremulous, I was full of uncertainty. It’s an everyday story of everyday folk, I began again. I was eaten up with self-doubt, I was being devoured alive. The feasters were feasting away on me, as is their wont. We don’t even need to say that, do we? That’s taken for granted, that’s a given. It’s an everyday story, I began. I was having a crisis. Every day it’s a crisis, isn’t that right? Isn’t that the way? The crisis of life. An everyday story. Do you know that thing where you have something to say but you don’t have what it takes to follow through with it? You’re hollow inside, you’re all hollowed out with time and inaction. The malign stagnancy of a life never lived. You cough up a mass of tiny black beating beetles and they stare up at you from the carpet and sofa where you sit drinking cold coffee from a cracked mug. They’re wondering where the hell they came from, they’re wondering what the hell they’re doing there. How they came into existence. There are species of boll weevil. They’re related to the flour weevils that eat flour, only they’re not. You’re coughing and coughing. You can’t stop coughing. You’re coughing up masses of beetles everywhere and you’re cursing and swearing as you do so. This is a bad start to the day, you tell yourself. Boll weevils everywhere. You wonder if they’re bad for the furniture. Will they get into the upholstery, you ask yourself. Will they eat away at the timbers of the house? It’s an everyday story, you tell yourself – it could happen to anyone. Don’t take it personally, We’ve all been there after all, haven’t we? I know we don’t like to talk about it but we’ve all been there, right? We don’t like to talk about it and I understand that. Seven forty-five in the morning coughing up boll weevils. Cursing for all you’re worth when you can catch your breath. Your coffee is full of little black beetles. It’s gone cold anyway. You’re all hollowed out inside, you’re all eaten up with self-doubt. You haven’t got the courage of your own convictions, only you haven’t got any convictions. You never did. You wonder what it’s all about. It’s an everyday story, you tell yourself. It’s twelve minutes past eight now. Outside the grimy window of your living room you can see dark, stooped shapes gathering – they look like people but you can’t be sure. They are milling around purposelessly. Strange hallucinatory clouds are boiling up madly on the horizon, clouds that look like crocodiles and flying saucers and dolphins and oriental dragons and galloping horses. You can see faces of people you used to know. You wonder what’s going to happen next…