Grendel

Find a pile of gold and sit on it.

I understand that the world was nothing: a mechanical chaos of casual, brute enmity on which we stupidly impose our hopes and fears.

But I have lived, and now I do not sleep.

So childhood too feels good at first, before one happens to notice the terrible sameness, age after age.

I know what's in your mind. I know everything. That's what makes me so sick and old and tired.

Stars, spattered out through lifeless night from end to end, like jewels scattered in a dead king's grave, tease, torment my wits toward meaningful patterns that do not exist.

The stars said nothing, but I pretended to ignore the rudeness.

Except in the life of a hero, the whole world's meaningless. The hero sees values beyond what's possible. That's the nature of a hero. It kills him, of course, ultimately. But it makes the whole struggle of humanity worthwhile.

I was younger then. Still playing cat and mouse with the universe.

All systems are evil. All governments are evil. Not just a trifle evil. Monstrously evil.