"Only God is perfect," mutters Arioch to himself, making a deliberate error while completing a new edifice of bureaucratese.
The mistake leads to a loop of definition, a stopping problem, a semantic black hole that sucks all matter and energy out of the entire nation.
The cockroach civilisation that follows worships Arioch as a god.
Each morning Jeremy puts his suit on the outside and his hate on the inside. He finishes it off with a matching tie and drives to work, negotiating traffic, parking station attendants, passers-by and co-workers with quiet contempt and distaste.
The hate keeps him upright during the day. He recharges it with hateful meetings, hateful tasks and hateful corporate coffee. He never shares his hate - never lets it out, never explodes. He is saving up for a rainy day.
The problem is that each day, the hollowness inside Jeremy where he wears his hate grows a little larger. The hate's corrosive biliousness dissolves fine layer after layer of Jeremy.
Each evening he takes off his suit and tie, takes out his hate and puts it into his wardrobe for the next day. But what's left after the rigid, articulated, knife-edged, glittering hate has left him is limp, gelatinous, and all he can do is flop on the couch in front of the telly.
