The man named Rob is visibly dispirited, morose; one can nearly find it palpable when within the propinquity of him. He is a man seated alone at the end of a lively bar, ornate with women laughing open-mouthed with big hair and men in pressed suits. He’s off in his own hinterlands, on his third Jameson on the rocks, light on the rocks, and he stares into the veneer of the wooden bar top before him for so long without blinking his tired, bloodshot eyes, that the fake, oval lantern above him reflecting onto it becomes dimly reminiscent of a summer moon.

The weight on his shoulders is sheer, like lace, but heavy as leather, and he hardly carries himself up tonight. He’s more wont to slouching after hours of brainwork, as if the stringing together of detail upon detail into an intricate mental map exhausts all the senses so…