A wretched vine of verbena grew from the shadow of a crevice in between bricks supporting a house on Tierrgartenstrasse, where whimpering like the dying demands of newborn crows could be silence without a trace. Verbena vines climbed above the frame of the doorway and choked out sunlight that was brimming rooftops stained as red as burgundy wine, the huse of a drunkard too weak to refill his pint, too sensitive of the occasion, too drunk to know right from wrong. He carved notches into the woodgrain of the bar table with his fingernails, cleaned them thumb to forefinger letting the specks of splinter fly. There were shadows stretching map-like along the floorboards, unrelenting as barren ribs. Swollen folds of putrid skin hung over his shoes, stiff from standing, calculating nutritional equations littered with innumberable hatchmarks. Dimly, darkly, hushedly hagrid eyes hollow and diffused from a burgundy nothingness caused sweat to break; fustigation of his conscience as a criminal peers through a mirror unable to differ deed from doer. Reaching for the wine bottle, he dodged punctuality, settling for the moment. He boiled anticipation in his veins and wanted nothing more than to avoid the next shift. Sitting impressionably mute in callous contempt, he removed a splinter from his palm.