You have outlived your usefulness, Zhao.
You must go.
You must change your life.
// But I know.
He and I both know.
That I have not [outlived].
I will die [in time] but I will live [thru Deng].
I cannot be corrected.
My event is me.

Eating a meal with Chris, and it is early August or late September—no, the other way—and we are gobbling Indian food in a part of the D.C. metro area that feels like the moment after a strip mall makes love to an expressway. We Rite Aid and Lowe's our way into our mulligatawny soups. Break nan. Is that coriander between your teeth? We are both mate-less, and the breeze chutes through like a young punk gliding down the recently waxed hallway of a freshly spruced middle school awaiting the visit of a local politico. He is a chemist no more, and I ended my study six years ago. We are trying to buy ourselves time, which is sold to us in short stories and films. And the sidewalk bears our vindaloo-thickened walk, while wine on his balcony that evening brings stars. Flashy like monuments. When concrete was new, I'm confused, what hope, really what hope did they have for it? Did they fathom its future? What went wrong?

the joy         Loop 4:       ? = VDec + V3 + V4
of life is the                5.00V ? 2.46V + 1.54V + 0.97V
incessant,      5.00V ? 4.97V
constant       (or: 5.00V - 2.46V - 1.54V - 0.97V = 0.03V)
victory of           Loop 5:      V1 + V2 = V3
the new            1.41V + 0.15V ? 1.54V      this
value            1.56V ? 1.54V       victory proceeds
—Ze Blaue Reiter           (or: 1.41V + 0.15V - 1.54V = 0.02V)      slowly