In high school, we had an assignment once where we had to come up with our own political party. I came up with a party who were so extremist about eliminating crime that even the most minor crimes were punishable by death, and graphic executions were televised 24/7 to deter would-be criminals.
...
![He closed his eyes and opened them.
The menu was in Russian.
He closed his eyes and opened them.
The menu was in Italian.
Closed his eyes, opened them.
There *was* no menu. There was a picture of a screaming little woodcut boy looking back over his shoulder at the woodcut wolf which had swallowed his left leg up to the knee. The wolf's ears were laid back and he looked like a terrier with its favorite toy.
I don't see that, Mike thought, and of course he didn't. Without closing his eyes he saw neat lines of English, each line listing a different breakfast temptation. Eggs, waffles, fresh berries; no birds roasted in shit. Still—
He turned around and very slowly edged himself out of the little space between the wall and the bed, a space that now felt as narrow as a grave. His heart was beating so hard that he could feel it in his neck and wrists as well as in his chest. His eyes were throbbing in their sockets. 1408 was wrong, yes indeed, 1408 was *very* wrong. Olin had said something about poison gas, and that was what Mike felt like: someone who has been gassed or forced to smoke strong hashish laced with insect poison. Olin had done this, of course, probably with the active laughing connivance of the security people. Pumped his special poison gas up through the vents. Just because he could *see* no vents didn't mean the vents weren't there.
[Stephen King, "1408" (1999)]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:akqfcgygsdasng4j6vrtoycw/bafkreiahktvgbyckewgj4lgfayvpddb77g5bwbitrvlfcw4lr75wdt66di)
![A YouTube comment translated from Japanese that simply reads "Gentle Hora Lu [sic]," as a description of Baritone.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:akqfcgygsdasng4j6vrtoycw/bafkreierfcpo6cdyoinlv4ffrwdz5l7crrlqwafyabbumq2no4sdbjp4fu)
