Yes, Doc, I'm not feeling too well.'Which was true enough, Kwang Meng considered.He had honestly not been feeling too well since he contracted poverty, loneliness, boredom, sexual frustration and periodic coughs and colds. Not to speak of his dreary job.

He walked across the room and flicked a switch. A spotlight turned on, illuminating a laminated poster of a woman on his wall. He took a crayon from his pocket and began drawing on it. I could see smudges from past demonstrations. [. . .] His dashed lines crisscrossed the woman's chest as if he were planning a military maneuver on undulating terrain.