Down on the street the protesters are shouting at each other, and at Lucas, but most of all they’re probably shouting just to shout. Just to be heard. Lucas stands quietly for a very, very long time, thinking about how awful it must feel: to be a person who so desperately wants something to happen. Lucas never wants anything to go on at all.

“You’re fortunate, Lucas. You view loneliness as taking people away. But for most of us, loneliness is just adding more loneliness.”

Lucas shudders, because “responsibility” and “commitment” are actually two of the easiest ways of ruining any perfectly good day.

He is in his thirties, he is not young, but also not old. He is a perfect combination of nothing.

The board probably consists of several people, but when Lucas opens the door he gets the distinct impression of one single body with many heads. Like a bureaucratic Hydra, a mythological monster in a sweater-vest and ergonomic slippers.

I, the angel, ask you to choose one thing each from the pile. For what is now everyone’s trash was once someone’s possession. Carry this thing with you through life as a reminder of the pile within yourselves. Do not collect junk in your hearts. You can make yourself happy if you don’t let others make you unhappy.

He doesn’t want you to call or email and he most certainly doesn’t want you to ever circle back.

The lunatics are just trying to find a little thing to give their lives meaning, Lucas. Just like the rest of us. They’re just trying to be happy.”

Because a funny thing about rule-loving people is that to them it seems more important to impose punishment than it is to actually solve problems, and a funny thing about rule-breaking people is that they seem to find