Midnight

(Poems are fast; Prose is slow. But I would definitely prefer prose over poem anytime on this blog)

Midnight is never too late, make it an hour more
To my love you lit a match
A tiny match
That shone dimly
Threatening to topple in time
Tread slowly, tread lightly
For the flame is scorching
At a mile,
The radiation emits forth
Guiding me to the pleasure
That I know will die
Oh! Late and later, Bright yet brighter!

Love is never too intense, make it a month longer
O how much you linger
Forever
Tiny
Relentless and undefeated
Feel deeply, feel fast
Feel this everlasting scorch
The torch does burn
Near an inch,
The heart retreats back
Trying to erase this memory
To no avail
Oh! Pain and more pain, burn yet burn forever!

Eternal mist (Or, anachronism)

1945

It was desolate. The destruction, the decay, the destitute. Where was the great leader when you need him anyway? A revolver I have, a pill of cyanide I also do have. What I don't have, is humanity. You see, what place can humanity rest in this disturbed world torn apart by pure ambition. The pillars of morality, the arches of civilization, the trusses of consciousness... all collapses in one followed by tens of millions of Soviet explosives. All men reverted to beasts, committing crimes that no man would ever imagine they could do. This gun I have... 6 bullets: no more, no less. Enough to kill 6 people, yet not enough to kill 6 beasts. The city runneth over with red paint. Is it blood? Blood that is frozen with the deserted coldness of the machete. I witnessed the turning of man to beast, but to witness the transfiguration of a beast to man: To see him realize what crimes he had done against humanity, the fabric which he tore apart violently, decimating 6 million threads (and counting)... I suppose that if anyone would go to hell, this person would be the first of all. Nonetheless, tyrants are tyrants, and there will be no end to any sort of person, not excluding such a malevolent kind. I suppose that the one thing I cannot construct is the story which I am telling you now. I am an architect, but to build a story so tragic, yet so lofty, is of the most difficult thing I could imagine.

Must compassion only be shown in the white mist of metal and sulphur?

Fly me to the moon, and let me play among the stars...

1964

Drunk, I suppose. What could sorrow do to a man? Forsooth! I was born without a purpose, and I drink also, without a purpose. Oh. I suppose these crude syntax and broken sentences are not suitable for an intellectually challenging environment such as... wait... are we in the mess hall now? Anyway, thank you for tuning in for my monologue, a soliloquy I suppose. Who in the history of drama has had a soliloquy as finely written as that of the most evil ever? The finest, yet the most malevolent. Enmesh them all... ha! Fly me to the moon, baby. Indeed, people are black clothes, drifting on the surface of the always permeating white mist? I cannot tell you what this white mist is though... possibly a mixture of sugar, alcohol, fruit, and decadence. A yellow car runneth over. Ah yes, also the revolver. 4 bullets I have. What happened to the rest of the two? Who knows! Probably used to shoot some Nazi bastard halfway across the planet. Why do I have a gun? I'd say, a sudden connection I had with this gun, that I knew I had to pick it up. No particular reason. Just for fun I guess.

Let me see what spring is like, on Jupiter and Mars...

2003

No one showed his face today. All were covered by a fine white misty visage (I suppose, not very fine). What a horrible name for a biological entity, a ch... but I think that it should be rightfully given a horrible epithet, for its horrible acts it commits against humanity. I propose that there is a cure for this disease that spreads itself so rapidly, and in such a deadly manner. I cannot yet find it though, just give me time for that, till rationality finally would take into me. Eventually, the voice of rationality should dominate us. Else, why would we be so good at capitalism? Capitalism is reason, and is the very basis of the free market we see today. The voice of reason, very true indeed, just like the revolver in my hand, with 2 bullets. Such a perfect number, the number of duet, of marriage! The program of reason, If-then-else-end. It is so logical, so numeric, and so ineffably consistent and perfect. Immaculate! You can almost smell the sentiment of joy I had with reason in my mind. My propositions runneth over. Unreasonably planned! Insanely sane!

In other words, hold my hand...

2105

Two hundred years. Of solitude.
(A video log on Vlogger.com. Date: 19 March 2105)

This is my two-hundredth birthday. What should I say really... There are so many robots in my stomach and intestines now that I don't even feel that my body is mine anymore. I am made of metal and sulphur, if I recall correctly. Chekov's gun is still here. It is, though with no bullets left. We don't need guns here in this peaceful age, man! The fine white mist is still here, but it is water vapour, as I learnt from the new-fangled science books on sale near my bunker. Oh, yes I live in a bunker now. It is quite small if you look from outside, but really spacious inside indeed, thanks to something called virtual reality (?). The physics of the present, haha, such great inventions.

Here is my piano. I almost forgot what a piano is - Man, it has almost been 60 years since I saw this old timer! For some reason, a person signed T sent that to me. I suppose that is a birthday present of some sort... I don't know how to play, I swear. But when I sat down, I found myself naturally hitting the keys, as if there is some internal motor within me, driven by... history? Oh, sorry for my blabbering, the future me, or the future you, or whoever/whatever will be viewing this Vlog. My memory runneth over. Signing off now.... bye future guy!

Fill my heart with song, and let me sing forever more.

2220

All dead.

Piles of cadmium, lithium, iron, chromium, silicon... Lifeless elements. Fragments of uranium too. An eerie green mist engulfs me. I suppose these are my last few words before I, too, get suffocated in this lov........ Another atomic bomb... It is alright, we are all used to it. 2000 years of civilization... what have we come to. Another beginning, right? No... I see no light at the end of the tunnel. This is THE end, I suppose. No more architects, no more drunkards, no more mathematicians, no more of that ordinary folk that is suddenly electrically shocked by history. All dead. We have come a long way, and this is the end. Embrace it.

Chekov's gun is here. It has no bullets, but let me lay down the hammer, pull the trigger... and die a nuclear death.

In other words, I love you...

Blue

Look not at the walls
Of black, grey and white
Until the seeming eternity passes
And the clouds do disperse
Into oblivion.

Glut yourself in the azure sky
For blue is the colour of forgetting
The walls soon forget their eternal colours
Of black, grey and white.
Look up! for it is the time to forget.

Atrophy

When I think about the
time I lost through atrophy
I cannot but laugh

Time is a cruel course
Of blood and tears and regret
filled with atrophy

I wonder through time
Who has never been worn out
then I laugh once more

Forever and more
Does time scrape out our colours
till eternity

To L

Perhaps one day we will never cross our eyes ever again. The grey and white walls of the cubicle would fall; the image of me in your memory would vapourize, like a slight breeze that never returns. One day when I am stranded in the sea, clinging to a floating log, I would only hope that one cell of your brain would still contain the vestige of my image, no matter how small that cell is.

'Tis a sweet dream of
Naked fire and Endless water
't's a curse of time with
Angst that I strangle my dream...

The Wind Fish wakes; the island vanishes. All that remains is but a dream. And as difficult as it is to recall a dream, you will never leave my eyes.

Multiple thoughts

There is a visage called the mouth. It is a gas mask, which renders all speech to muffles, unintelligible ramblings about anything that must be deemed insignificant. Oratory and dirges, all reduced to blasphemous nonsense. Each of these thoughts that follows may offend you, but that is because of its originality, its unbroken virtue that doth not penetrate the material plastic that separates fire from fantasy. If you find yourself unable to continue reading, then please, by all means, stop, and continue with your life: that so insipid, so bastardized life.

1. On the most dis[g]ussed number: What is it with numbers that so... enchant, or rather, deceives the common man? For one fine example, take the essential unity from the difference of the leading immaculate duet, give three less than sextuple itself where Galois could guarantee, allow a superstition to adulterate one less than which our terrestrial cosmos do orbit... I suppose, and I do suppose, that numbers is the only means which men could characterize themselves... quantitatively. Quantitative descriptions allow for easy comparisons. And who is able to look fame in the eye and not be seduced? This man only resides in novels and poems, I suppose. A number is painted gold, but let humanity be a solution of aqua regia. I will see what your number can do.

2. On humiliation. What does it mean to be humiliated? I suppose that we would agree that a loss in a battle is a humiliation (or even a loss of a number...). I would say to you that battles themselves are humiliations: Humiliations to the very virtue of human. Is it enough to win? No. No victories are accomplished without defeat, and even if there are, it would not satiate the bottomless pit. Yes, that is a kind of humiliation. But what IS humiliation? Humiliation is the moment when the immoral "moralizes", the uneducated "educates", the barbaric "rules", the dissonant "unites", the greedy "humbles", the entropic "organizes", the downright egregious plays the protagonist in the contrived theatre you call life. This is why we are doomed to fall as a civilization: These uncivil underminers of what our ancestors have established.

3. On rules: I am an opposer of authoritarian regimes. I would much prefer a life without rules than one with rules. I am sure that most would agree. But from where do rules arise? We are a civilization that is uncivil. We harm each other to our benefits, or even to our own harm, for the sake of harming. This sadism permeates through all of us, an inescapable fate that plays the final notes of our dirge, breaking the string of the violin of life, I suppose. When I observe how downright evil and selfish humans (and I mean you, all of you) can be, I would just sigh in the face of rules, and allow her to deliver her punishment to mankind, as I have proven that human is a kind of animal that thrives not on civilization, but on torture.

4. On the Obvious: I did a presentation on the theory of knowledge for the IB, and discussed the topic of common sense (yes I am a student too). Yet, I suppose I should reject all that I said. Humans are illogical creatures. Even the most obvious of all things would seem to them as dubious. Humans have eyes, but they are so rarely used that I doubt if we have them functioning at all. An inherently false statement by definition, or even by the most basic of all logic, would be deemed true, and be used as a law, a theory in the "Sciences". How absolutely ridiculous, how an entity can be formed with 1000 individual entities that wish only to annihilate their own species, to gain an advantage (or to perform sadistic acts, as I have mentioned). The result is a structure that collapses on itself. Yet, we put them in a package so elaborately decorated, so colourful, so pretentious, that we would win our battle just by cardboard alone. 

I suppose that I should stop thinking. Thinking is not valued in this society anymore. Better to say the prayers that harm, the incantations that kill, the curse that, ironically, heals, while the music of life runs, albeit always a beat slow.

The Interviewed and the Dead

Yesterday, English killed the Summer

Today, English killed the innocent mind

In the midst I heard a Chinese voice

"Your bag is open"

I sighed as I was spared of my life



What an irony, that I write in a language that kills

But do guns kill?

Crimes under the moonlight

Today is the time when the Chinese celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival, characterized by the bright and round moon that shines its light on all of us. No matter where you are physically (as long as you are in the correct time zones and as long as weather permits), you can see the same bright and round moon, just as anyone else can see it. This is why it is often used as a symbol of union.

The moonlight is elegant -- it sure is. It shines on humanity without scorching it. It carries warmth without the harsh heat of the sun. Nonetheless, it shines, despite of its inability to light our lives up. It does not take credit of that.

It is as if the future is communicating with us, when I look at the sky it is. I wonder how many emotional and inspirational quotes are derived from this glowing rock, reflecting the sun's radiation on earth, yet almost in an ephemeral, insignificant manner. A wisp of the electromagnetic power, transported nonetheless, unfailingly, no matter how negligible. It perhaps reminds us, how we are but a measly group of creatures, inhabiting this small rock in the solar system, orbiting along the Milky Way, somewhere in space, sometime in time, or perhaps, somewhere in the Multiverse. We are but a "pale blue dot".

But some are not content alas. Moonlight is not enough. Being insignificant isn't the answer. Through calculations and papers, we have arisen from an uncivilized culture to a civilized brawl. Brawlers berserk under the moonlight, transforming into menacing werewolves, about to devour the very heart of humanity, the earth, the measly, almost impalpably tiny pale blue dot. They want not the immaterial moonlight. They want the moon. The moon itself.

Thus, no more union.

The first spacecraft to reach the moon arrived at the moon in 1959, the Luna 2. The first man to land on the moon, of course, is Neil Armstrong, in 1969. We, people from the earth, are trying to own the moon. We want the competition. We like competitions. Science is a competition. We engineer to lead our country to compete against the onslaught of other countries, carrying the same psychology. The leading institute in research, but of course. For a number, we have fought. For a number, we have self-denied. For a number, we have strangled. For a number, we have murdered.

And you wonder, sitting here reading this, what a number can do to us. Certainly, competitions are the derivative of numbers. (Mathematics is often confused with numbers. I assure you they are not equal.) We want the rock above the pale blue dot. Most of all, we want to be above the pale blue dot. It is not enough for us to advance. We need others to fail at advancing.

And you wonder, sitting here reading this, what happened to the man who wanted the moon. Well, all I could say is that he found himself a way to ascend, a way to pull himself to the surface of the moon. He rises, and rises... until the earth became a pale clue sector, then a pale blue sphere... A rock in front of him. That's all he gets. Nothing else.

You want a rock? (Do you mean what you say?)

The moon, thus, is not about union anymore. Nor is it about time, about curiosity, about love. It is about a number. 7180114562 deaths, as well.

Story of the man with a cigarette

There once was a man with a cigarette

The cigarette is where the man finds his home

The man is where the cigarette finds his home

Polluting the atmosphere for fantasy.


One day, the cigarette was stolen

Enraged, the man took out his machete

And shredded everyone he saw on the street

Why would you not mourn for my loss? the man thought


And it was all natural for him to do that

Who would allow others to rejoice

While he loses his meagre bit of dignity

The cigarette, as it is called.


The company of thieves, named C,

Struck by the violence of the man,

Returned the cigarette (secretly of course)

I don't want to be the next victim! they thought.


And here is the story of the man with a cigarette

The cigarette is where the man finds his home

The man is where the cigarette finds his home

Continuing to pollute, continuing to fantasize.

A_Tragic_Tale.py

Last login: Sun Jul 14 22:44:05 on console
n218103212030:~ nicholaswong$ python3
Python 3.3.2 (v3.3.2:d047928ae3f6, May 13 2013, 13:52:24)
[GCC 4.2.1 (Apple Inc. build 5666) (dot 3)] on darwin
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.

>>> A sprint
Voltage: 3.00V
Power: 90%

>>> Absences
Voltage: 2.80V
Power: 70%

>>> Newsletter
Voltage: 2.50V
Power: 50%

>>> An angel
Voltage: 3.50V //I am about to overload!
Power: 100%

>>> Leaving. Why?
Voltage: 2.30V
Power: 30% //FAILING CONDITION! POSSIBLE CAUSE (ERROR CODE): 34ΛY

>>> Distance
Voltage: 2.29V
Power: 25% //FAILING CONDITION! SHUTDOWN IMMINENT.

>>> Insignificant ramble
Voltage: 2.25V
Power: 50% //USING BACKUP POWER SOURCE! (You don't have to do this. Really.)

>>> Horror
Voltage: 2.20V
Power: 50% //IDLE: 2 HOURS

>>> Hope
Voltage: 2.50V
Power: 50% //Are we having power again?







>>> Leavings.
Voltage: 0V
Power: 0%

SYSTEM SHUTDOWN.




You are hopeless.

Nightmare

(A tribute to an enigmatic mind)

I open my eyes
Nightmare (I am used to it)
I close my eyes, just to open them again
Nightmare (I always see it)
A dream was born.

I pick up a book
Nightmare (Haven't we all seen it?)
I put down the book, just to pick it up again
Nightmare (We are ALL used to it)
A dream blossoms

I hold up my pen
Nightmare (We can do this)
I put down the pen, just to hold it up again
Nightmare (I am sure)
A dream manifests

I walked in bliss
Nightmare (Why are you even doubting?)
I sat down, just to walk again
Nightmare (I am optimistic about this)
A dream is kidnapped

I read the paper
Nightmare (Your pessimism!)
I tore the paper in half,
and I stopped reading
Nightmare (You should stop worrying)
A dream is tortured

I stopped walking
Nightmare (Well)
I stopped writing
Nightmare (A miracle is bound to occur)
I stopped being awake
Nightmare (A miracle...)
A dream is crucified

What is the meaning in all this
Nightmare
Why do we even live in this
Nightmare
Because we know it
That there is no such thing as a miracle.

Perhaps death is too horrible for us, so we settle for a
Nightmare
What a cowardly cling onto this
Nightmare
I laugh at your cowardice.

A never ending
Nightmare
A never ending
Nightmare

A Miserable Little Pile of Secrets

Are human sentiments illusions?

Illusions are phenomena that are perceived differently from what actually happened. But the question is: What actually happened? Can we really ascertain the absolute truth of what happens when we perceive? Scientific realism tells us that the occurrence of physical phenomena is independent of our observation (which, if we are to delve into quantum physics, is doubted as the wavefunction collapses (with an unknown mechanism) upon an observation of the system concerned). Whatever is the correctness of scientific realism, we cannot prove what we cannot perceive. What actually happens is still a mystery.

You see, the problem of sentiments is that you cannot perceive it. Only the person himself knows what he is thinking (I don't really do though). We can only deduce what a person is thinking through his actions, or demeanor, or speech or whatever means you can derive. Language is a denotation, but it is not the story.

Can we really prove anything?

There must be some kind of objectivity behind every deduction or judgment. One would normally consider murder an immoral action. You don't need the justification of utilitarianism or egoism or any other moral theories to see that. It is innate in our minds that certain actions must be deemed immoral. Certain actions, hence, represent some kind of sentiments. Actions, a kind of language, is a means of communicating what you think to others. But of course, miscommunications occur, and that will be the downfall of the denotation system.

We cannot prove anything.

What a depressing statement. Even the most logical of all systems, mathematics, fails to prove its own completeness (Godel). Are we then, only living in an illusion? We cannot ascertain anything absolutely. Even the question of where you really are proves to be the toughest to answer. Are you in the universe? But there maybe a clone of you with exactly the same emotions, living identical lives, having identical thoughts, outside "somewhere" in the universe. Even the thought that you are on the earth, now, is being challenged by quantum mechanics. There is a probability of you being in a distant galaxy, instead of sitting on a chair, listening to this pathetic excuse of rambling.

Why do we carry on living, then, knowing that this is all an illusion? Soon the illusion will end, and we shall face the truth of death. We all perform actions because we know that death is not impending. We still have a long time to live (probably tens, or even hundreds of years, considering the advancement of technology nowadays), and we consider our actions to be short term, and the long term consequence of death seems to be negligible, with such an intangibly far distance from us.

But we will all die.

Why do we preserve our lives, holding onto them like a "dog fawning over a bone"? Death is undesirable, painful, morbid, judging. But inevitable. We must all succumb to this fateful ending. Perhaps we all try to fight against it, trying to deceive it, delay it. But there is no way we can live forever.

And our sentiments, what we carry forward throughout the years, will remain unknown. Our brain cells which once stores the memory of or sentiments will decay into worthless carbon. Emotionless, apathetic.

I Wanna Be the Guy (IWBTG), a ridiculously masochistic game that joins together much of the gaming experiences of the late 20th century console games (in a twisted way), features the following scene from Castlevania (NES):

"Kid: Die monster! You don't belong in this world!

Dracula: It was not by my hand that I was once again given flesh. I was called here by humans who wish to pay me tribute

Kid: Tribute? You steal men's souls! and make them your slaves!

Dracula: Perhaps the same could be said of all religions.

Kid: Your words are as empty as your soul! Mankind ill needs a saviour such as you!

Dracula: What is a man!? A miserable little pile of secrets!"

(One of the reasons why I love classical games)

Perhaps we are really a miserable pile of secrets. So miserable, that we cling on to it so hard. The harder we grasp, the harder we lose, and that is when the secrets will be lost forever, into entropy.

-HCN, 10/6/13

Entropy (with a madman)

Entropy: A measure of disorder. A universally increasing quantity. A fateful quantity, that destroys the dream of a perpetual machine, that dissipates focused energy, that breaks unity into disunity, that dictates the outcome of life, of the world, of the Universe. No engine can defy it. No process can hold it back. No man can stop this arrow of time.

Of time itself.

Sometimes I just wonder how this is made possible. Even the thought of an ever increasing quantity sounds like a daunting illusion. Our body becomes more and more disordered, until our organs malfunction, our systems fail, and we, by fate, are condemned to rot in the soil for an eternity.

The maximization of entropy is inevitable. Any other outcome is infinitesimally improbable compared to the destruction of order. The most ordered, is in fact the disordered: It is the only state we can barely hope (hope, huh? Hope?) to achieve. It is morbid, but it is true. We shall see it.

1. Life and death
Life is ordered. The ordering of living society, the social norms we must abide by. There is no society for the dead. They just rot under their tombstones. Forever.

2. Emotions
Emotions are ordered. Perhaps that is why all I see are emotionless, absolute zero faces everywhere on the street. Entropy has already triumphed.

3. Unison
I give up my expectations to whoever still believes a unison exists. It does not. Entropy has washed it away, like a flood breaking a dam, built with the blood and tears of engineers. All gone.

4. Fate
Chaotic fate. Fate pertains to entropy. Fate dictates what your next action will be, what your brain decides to send forth within your nerves, to your limbs, to your hands. Cry all I like, nothing is going to change because of your petty drops of saline liquid.

5. Games
When games become murderers. This is when entropy wins. This is when I die...

6. War and violence
War exists in history. War exists now. War creates entropy. But entropy catalyzes war. Who knows when we will be struck with violence. Painful or painless, entropy creeps in, and it is the end as we know it.

7. Numbers
One, two, three, four... up to infinity. Numbers seem to be under our control, but we, in fact, are dominated by numbers themselves. We are puppets under these manmade symbols representing nothing. Nothing, but measures of entropy.

8. The mouse
The mouse you see on the street. He needs your help. He is stained with his own blood, from his fight with none other than entropy. He thought there was a meaning. Huh.

9. The Internet
I always imagined when the Internet focused its power, what would happen. Would the Internet take over everyone? Perhaps the Internet would spring up as a new nation on this chaotic planet of ours. If only though.

10. The madman's house
Grey, colourless sort of green, white, the trembling, the cracks, the water stained floor, the humiliation, Capitalism, the transient feeling, of what you call joy. Contrast, it is. Dramatic irony.


∞: Grey-coated angel
You are grey in the exterior. Azure shirt under the grey, red under the azure. Burning red. Searing red. Envious red. Unforgiving red. You are the epitaph of love, of entropy. I betrayed. I don't deserve to exist. I haven't anyway, I haven't anyway.




I am afraid the rest of this "list" is too radical for you, the reader, to read. In fact, what entails is the most mortifying statement of the Second Law of Thermodynamics to ever exist. I fear that you are too weak to bear this fact. Please, please refrain from asking further.

"Press the launch button. Escape now, away from this planet. We still have hope on other planets!"

Fools.

Confession of pretense

"One shudders to imagine what inhuman thoughts lie behind that mask..."

Would you spare some time, for a round of confession? A confession from a beggar, a rich one.

What, you ask. How can a beggar be rich? Why is it so? Do resist your temptation to ask these idiotic questions, as they are of no help to anyone. Not even you.

This beggar is poor, poor in eloquence. This beggar is hurt, hurt in personality. This beggar is deprived, deprived of his "consciousness". This beggar is torn, torn from his companions. This beggar has nothing, nothing but material, worthless money. And the most important of all: This beggar is begging, begging for your time to hear his confession.

Is this world deterministic? Well, many may believe that the world is in fact controlled by our free-will: that we can mold our future with our hands. "I am afraid that is a bit too optimistic to be true", he says (Or at least he THINKS). As a person who lost his "consciousness", he is definitely not going to "determine" his future, or even his present. His mind is so deeply drawn into immaterial, non-existent concepts (why are they important anyway? I say, stop asking these paltry questions. They mean little, if not nothing), that he cannot even focus on any worldly affairs. He has a tendency to drop petty matters out of his mind. The trouble is: What seems petty to him, is definitely not petty to his "superiors". (I am being too explicit here, and I shall refrain from describing any further.)

You see, only a fool would concentrate himself on useless symbols that means little. Wait, are we in the concrete world, where everything must be organized and clear? I implore you to remove your assumption that we are currently situated in that "concrete" world. No man ever lived in the "concrete" world. They only lead an existence. A dead existence.

There is no second chance in the "concrete" world. It is tainted with the sickly green gooey substance that entraps all emotions. It kills all imagination by suffocating it. It tortures minds by extorting it with "death" (I don't understand how a dead person can "die"). Hostility is green.

He confesses that he is in the "concrete" world. He wants to escape. He wants to live again. But how can I grant his wish? Nobody would listen to this fine gentleman. And I, alone, seemingly apathetic (emotions exist not in the "concrete" world. It is natural that you don't see mine), actually empathize this gentleman. But how insignificant I am! How powerless I am, to the overwhelming of the "dead". I am drowned, just like he is about to be, in this sickly green goo. Who attempts to escape, drowns.

But who would listen anyway? Even a confession is regarded as pretense in this "concrete" world.

I like that gentleman, a rich beggar, a poor beggar, a sick beggar, a mindless beggar, an absent-minded beggar, a quaint beggar, an idiosyncratic beggar, an alive beggar. He is all of them in one.

He lives. Do you?

"...What dreams of chronic and sustained cruelty!"