Break The Neck Of A Wild Cimmerian Bull Before You Call Yourself Strong

What is best in life? To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women? Right, maybe not. But it would be something, at least. There are no shows coming up that I want to see. Movies? Please. Listen, my one shoe just finished tearing down the instep. That pair of black trousers has gone missing. My second job wants me to increase my availability from one shift a week to, like, five. I just remembered that my damn library fines are at about a hundred dollars. I am very tired and I am in a black mood. I have been trying to fight with a lot of the kids. I wish the people would insult me so I could have an excuse to attack them. I wished we lived in a world of mud and battle-axes and thunder-smash giants and if I wanted to run into a brick wall over and over again, who would stop me? No one would. To hell with Thulsa Doom and everyone else, I say. I don't want to live forever.

I still like the good-looking girls, though. I can't hate them.

"For Real" + Okkervil River A little farther off than last week, Solomon was sitting through one of those dreary officially-designated court days when any man-jack—or woman, for that matter—can walk up to the king and ask for a decision. And there was a fight in the doorway, women yelling and the calm voice of the porter, until Solomon raised his head and said, "Let them in, already, porter, get them in here, then." So the women came in, a brunette and another brunette, good women, non-smokers both, and the one woman claimed that the other had stolen her child—but there was no way to prove anything either way. Solomon shrugged and said "Whatever. Cut the baby in half and give them each a piece." But the actual for-sure real mother shrieked around a bit and then said, "No, let this woman here have my baby, then. Anything so long as my baby gets to live." And Solomon knew that only the real mother would have spoken like that and he gave the baby back to the real mother and made the other woman pay very heavily for her selfishness. Then he said, "I'm taking a break here," and he walked out the back door to where Okkervil River was playing a set in the garden and he smashed his fist against a wall, just once.