aXEL bORG7*

August Strindberg has a Van Dyke; I do not. Strindberg went horribly mad, insane with jealousy and alchemy; I have not, not yet. He wrote plays, books on necromancy and black magic, novels and diaries. I have a beard, trimmed close and neat to the scull of my face, and a hearing aide with a toggle switch to increase or decrease volume and humming. Strindberg wore well-tailored suits, serge and gabardine, pleated and double-breasted; I wear pony denim and rubber sandals with a silly insignia on the strapping. Strindberg had a fondness for the people of the islands of Stockholm’s archipelago; I was born on an island, one much smaller than an archipelago or a Stockholm. Strindberg’s grandfather was a spice merchant; mine a boiler-man from Liverpool. Strindberg is dead; I am not, not yet.