(no subject)
Succumbing to a profound sense of ineptitude, he flayed the skin that dressed his forearm, revealing the lackluster green of dormant veins, entwined with coy, nameless counterparts. He painted the exposed flesh with warm tar from a mud basin, with a coarse horsehair brush. When it settled comfortably within him, he would operate, casting one from another, driving all foreign matter from himself with precision from experience, but never with any more enthusiasm for his handiwork than was necessary to keep awake, for it had to be completed regardless. In such a way he lived, on borrowed stature, noted reservation, and with an increasingly acute awareness of his temporality ( ).