We should hang ourselves immediately, I tell W., it's the only honorable course of action. We are compromised, utterly compromised. W. feels he has to pull me back from the brink. It's not that bad, he says. We should stab ourselves in the throat, I tell him. I over-react to everything, says W., it's my dramatic nature. I'm an hysteric. He, by contrast, takes the long view. He's more grandly apocalyptic than I am. You have to see it all in terms of the apocalypse, says W. I do have my great apocalyptic moments, W. concedes, but I do not have the sobriety and longness of view required by apocalypticism. You see it's not just you or I, W. says in Birmingham art gallery, it's everyone. I'm calmed by his words. The disaster is everywhere.