Grown, Decadent Hound.

'But he can't shake that feeling, that weight, that, that, what's the word again?

Empathy!

Empathy, right. He just can't get rid of it! That darn connectedness. It's painful having that sewn into your skin. So he tries to think of other things on his way to the makeshift office. Like.

Like. Uhhhh.

Like who would win in a fight, a werewolf or a minotaur?

Harder, still, the pebbles and debris underfoot bring the pit back into his stomach.

He doesn't like it.

He thinks of straight lines. And wavy lines. Diagonal lines. And squares. The random needlessness of the images he hopes will make some headway towards ennui.

At last the memory of a particularly uninteresting conversation with an old co-worker brings him back into the fold of indifference and boredom.

He shudders off the unpleasantness, and finally, happily, is once again as useless as a newborn baby.'