He knows the end of times suits me, in some way. He knows that it might allow me to come into my own.

It's as if the world were my nightmare, W. says. As if the whole would is nothing but a fever-dream of mine, in which he, W., has no real existence.

It's a kind of gnosticism, W. says. I'm the bad demi-urge, who made everything go wrong, and he's the divine principle which struggles for the good.

But in the end, W. knows that he's no match for me. The world's coming to meet me, W. says. Everything's heading in my direction, and happening on my terms. And there I am laughing in the midst of the apocalypse. There I am, a little piece of it - a sample, like the tester pots of paint you can buy in B & Q.

This is what it's going to be like: that's what W. discovers in my company. The end times are going to be exactly like this.

How do I bear it, my day to day reality?, W. asks. But it's quite clear: I don't bear it. My life is in a state of collapse, anyone can see it. Lars is in the final act, W. always tells himself. It can't go on, can it? But it does go on, W. says. Empires have collapsed more slowly.

And there's my smile, W. says. My dreadful smile. It's as though I were enjoying some kjind of revenge, W. says. As though I was exacting a kind of revenge on myself, for what, he doesn't know.

'You have that look which says: everything's over, it's all finished', W. says. 'But it hasn't finished, has it? And it won't be finished until that dreadful smile, the mockery of the whole of existence, is wiped from my face.