1889

This comic was not occasioned by a witty thought that brought a smile to the lips of its author. It is an absolutely soulless creation, devoid of any reason to exist save that it is Wednesday. This execrable XKCD-phone series is a self-justifying sequence, like the hole-digger of Blood Meridian, and it's possible to wonder whether they would continue to appear even if Randall himself died. They are completely interchangeable, with nothing to distinguish one from another for better or worse. There is no love in their creation.

Death can take many forms, but what they all have in common is the complete cessation of change. One of the most terrible is the willing retreat into stagnation. It can be difficult, even in retrospect, for anyone to say when precisely he ceased to live-- when the mantle of success, once the object of passionate toil, became a smothering blanket, and then a shroud. To witness it in another is horrifying.