I am lying down. I can hear them laughing, eating, celebrating. I am the driver, so I cannot go out. I am dying. And I watch the loop. Tension → need for relief → fast relief. For years the third slot held alcohol. Now it holds sleep. The dream of switching off, disappearing, escaping the noise. This is a safer version of the same loop. But a loop.
Something important happened between that moment and this one: I stopped putting alcohol in the relief slot. I put in sleep, silence, leaving the room, a conversation with an algorithm at two in the
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