Easy Willie comes through the door, a practice which he makes a habit.     ‘The crowd is restless.’     ‘Unh?’     ‘Like cows before a thunder storm.’     ‘Aah.’     ‘You have no idea what I’m talking about.     ‘No.’     ‘Want a logical resume of what is wrong with things?’     ‘No.’     ‘That’s the trouble with you.’     I lie on the floor and patiently ignore him.  In the gap between the window and the door the sky looks like a thin strip of nasty, pale blue virus culture. Maybe if I eat a couple more it will go away. Maybe if I eat six, Willie will go away too. I look in the box.  There’s only two left, plus about half a one that I’d been nibbling for half the previous day. Willie, not getting any attention, starts to fuck with the incubator.     ‘Don’t fuck with the incubator.’     ‘Why not?’     ‘The chickens’ll get out.’     ‘So?’     ‘They’re my fucking chickens.’     ‘That’s the trouble with you.’ There’s no escaping Willie. The sky looks even more virulent. I sit up, get up, walk across the room. Close that last gap of curtain. Then I go to the stereo and turn down Fat Man by the Hawks.  I look Willie straight in the eye.  A cool, even, tightlipped, high plains drifter look in the eye. Paranoid, see it through, auto destruct look.     'What’s the matter with me?' Willie shuffles in a circle like Step’n Fetchit.     'Oo-we-oo. I was listening to that.' I grit my teeth, bad mescaline, cheap Scotch, Henry Fonda ragged.     'What’s the matter with me?’     ‘You’re just like all the rest. Five cents please.’ Willie makes as if to go, but I grab him, wrestle him to the floor. I pick up a bottle from the corner and threaten him with it.     ‘Tell me about it.’     ‘You’re paranoid.’     ‘So? What else is new?’     ‘The human race is dying out.’     ‘So?’     ‘You don’t care?’     ‘I’ll kill you Willie.’     ‘It’s a line.’     ‘Hunh?’     ‘Snurf.’     ‘Unh?’     ‘Snurf.’     ‘Whaa?’     ‘It’s a line.’     ‘That’s one way of looking at it.’     ‘Can I get up again?’  I don’t say anything, but lie down on the floor again. Willie gets up and dusts himself off. He looks at the incubator, looks at me, looks back at the incubator. I raise my head.     ‘1 warned you.’ Willie alters course and heads past the incubator and over to the window. He parts the curtains.  I go white at the knuckles.  I know it, I don't even have to look.       ‘Shut those fucking curtains.’ The sky is overcrowded with hostile organisms looking for someone to infect.  Willie reluctantly closes the curtains. I crawl to the TV.  It's the Wet Woman show. A blonde with big tits is having buckets of water poured over her to the tune of April In Paris. It isn’t hard to follow and we watch it in silence for a while. Then Willie turns his head slowly.     ‘You don’t care, do you?'     ‘About what?’     ‘Got a cigarette?’     ‘Sure.’ I toss over the packet.  A mild blend.     ‘What don’t I care about?’ Willie lights his cigarette just like they used to do on the commercials.     ‘The human race is dying out.'     'There's plenty of them left.'     ‘The rats and roaches will inherit the earth.'     'Nothing else?'     ‘Penguins.  Maybe where it's cold.'     'So?'     ‘You ought to be concerned.'     ‘Why?’     ‘It’s extinction time. You’ve seen the figures.’     ‘Nothing I can do.’     ‘All you want to do is snort coke off lumps of polished agate.’     ‘I don’t have no polished agate.’     ‘You don’t have no coke either.’     ‘Is that what you came looking for?’     ‘No.’ Willie looks out of the window again.  Again I yell at him.     ‘Shut it. It gets in.’     ‘Let’s go out.’     ‘Out?'     ‘Sure. Out.’     ‘Where?’     ‘Under the overpass.’ I begin to get agitated. Willie is starting to make me swell internally. I can feel it. I stare at the floor. I think some of the sky virus is hiding among the pile on the carpet. I look back at Willie. I’m sure he’s an agent sent in to get me outside on my own.     ‘I don’t want to go out.     ‘Why not?’     ‘If the temperature drops the chickens will die.’     ‘So?’     ‘They’re my chickens, and, anyway, under the overpass we’re quite likely to get mortally stomped by Seconal crazed juveniles.’     'Rubbish, we're too big and feisty. They only pick on school girls and old people.  We ain’t going to get either robbed or raped.’     'I don’t want to go there.’     ‘Okay, let’s not go there, let’s go see a fuck film.'     'No!'     ‘Why not?’     ‘Those places are full of scummy old people who cough up green stuff and want to touch you.’     'Suit yourself'     The sullen silence falls upon us.  On TV two redheads are beating each other with celery. Celery in bilious colour. Willie peers at the screen.        ‘Want I should fuck with the colour guns?’     'No, you’ll damage it.'        ‘Who me?’     ‘Yes you. I don’t trust you.'        ‘There you go again.’        ‘Hunh?’     ‘You’d think people would get a bit more excited about becoming extinct.’     ‘Meaning me?’     ‘Sure, why not?’        ‘I don’t like the human race.’     ‘Then why aren’t you jumping about?’     ‘It isn’t like it was something good.’     ‘Like what?’        ‘I don’t know. Godzilla, something with class.’        ‘The extinction of a species ain’t good enough for you, then? You gotta have class.  You gotta have fucking Godzilla before you’ll raise a grin.’     ‘Sure. That’s what they have on Star Trek.'        ‘Name one of the first men on the moon.’     ‘Who gives a fuck?’      ‘You can name anyone out of Star Trek.’        ‘Sure, any time.’     ‘But you don’t care about the demise of the human race?'          ‘Like I said, who gives a fuck? They’re all fucking animals anyway.’     'It’s a line though.'     I shrug.     'If you say so.'        On TV, men in black PVC suits turn fire hoses on a pit filled with two years’ worth of Playmates-of-the-Month.