“No one has died from not getting loving, but life feels very hard without it. Life can drag without loving, life can weigh a lot without loving, poverty, sickness, and trying to show up to work on time and care about work enough to do a good job to not lose the job seem so much easier when one is getting some loving.

But Vasily is getting no loving.

So here he is, purchasing time with a lady.”

A COLD WIND BLOWS TONIGHT, by Noah Cicero