3:20 pm

One good thing about fictional characters is that you get to know all their secrets.

Scott is missing part of his foot after a motorcyle accident when he was 4. He grew up in the fucking sticks, and his father was good for nothing. He may or may not have herpes, and he's afraid to get tested. He has a rough singing voice. He is a terrific lay, totally unashamed, harsh, and powerful. He thinks P.J. Harvey is full of shit. He is a liar. He wants to be a rockstar, and he wants to be the opposite of a rockstar. He has had a lot of bad girlfriends, and he has been their ultimate bad boyfriend. This has influenced him enormously. He does not want to write a novel. He loves Paul Ford to a fault and can't stand to see Paul spinning his wheels.

Alan is going on a date with Passerine Murray. He is cleaning his bathroom. He has been thinking too much lately. He is very normal and it makes him extraordinarily sad to keep uncovering evidence of his normalcy. He likes but does not love. He explores paths already explored. He is unphased by dark things. He reads novels without desiring to write any. He takes medication to keep him balanced. Clonazapem. But he thinks, and thinks.

Passerine Murray is the image of beauty, and is possessed by artistic drive and deep emotion. But like many attractive women she has been coddled by patronizing men, and has developed a false sense of suffering to compensate and motivate herself. She is very cold.

All of them are from somewhere else, and their parents are nowhere, their brothers and sisters already married or still in college. They form cultures and the cultures vanish just as fast.