“How much would you off er?” I asked.
“Three thousand plus a bed in the dorm.”
“Three thousand and fi ve hundred.”
“OK! Sign the contract tomorrow.”
All that night my mind had been dancing with fi re yet without the slightest realization that I should be more aggressive. But really the lack of aggressiveness was my nature, and nature is unchangeable. The interview, like any interview or any examination, somehow disgusted me and filled me with negativity, passivity and a sense of absolute uselessness. The anxiety of unemployment and the worries of running out of money were temporarily covered up. They were covered up but yet not gone, because they had the same stickiness and same diffi culty to peel off as the advertising labels on the ground or on poles. The fear of living, making a living, making a good living lurked at the bottom of my life, and my fears were always bottomless.