He’s looking for the name to use for himself when he doesn’t care to hear your opinion of any damn thing. An outcast troglodytic. It’s like the living in a cave they used to do. Dead at twenty. He looks down at the book even as his neck whiskers poke into his upper chest. He doesn’t like it anyway, and shakes his head off at you.

“Just don’t say anything right now. Nothing, please.”

You’re confused and want to be angry. He seemed relatable earlier in the day. You stand and take the pack of cigarettes and lighter out onto the balcony.

He’s still looking for something to call himself. Sapient. Murgatroyd. The man who knew as much. His head aches with all the thinking. He looks at you through the glass. He sets the book down in the folds of the floral comforter.

“I don’t know,” he says. “I can’t find it. I’m really tired.”

You take a drag and offer your cigarette. He steps outside with you and listens to the freeway.

“You’re a real prick,” you say.

He inhales some smoke, coughs violently. His cheeks swell and his throat weezes.

“I’m a real prick,” he says. He returns the cigarette to you. “As long as it’s about me. I’m gonna go look for some more jobs.”

The light is faint but constant. It keeps you company while he derides your act. Your schtick. The mode of being.

“What’s worse than this? How can I be any less to you? Should I suck a dick while you think of the Queen?” You pace to the other end of the balcony, obstructed by the heavy curtain drawn across the glass.

He reaches underneath the torn lamp shade. You hear him click a plastic nub and the light turns on. His papers and computer are scattered across the faded surface. “It’s easier if you’re good for nothing else. You or the queen. All of you. It’s just the only way.”

You shove the remaining cigarette into the wall. You see a shadow of your reflection in the framed painting on the wall beyond him.

“Who am I?” you say.

He sits down on his towel placed over the chair. When he looks toward you again you don’t exist.