Hal's blizzard anhedonia (p. 851)
I didn’t feel good at all. A sort of nausea of the head. The feeling seemed worst first thing in the morning. I’d felt for almost a week as if I needed to cry for some reason but the tears were somehow stopping just millimeters behind my eyes and staying there. And so on.
Context
The "GAUDEAMUS IGITUR" dateline of 20 November opens the novel's terminal movement, and Hal — narrating in first person now, the voice of scene 001 switching on — wakes before 0500 with this. Dammed tears, "nausea of the head," and the theme's flattest punctuation mark: "And so on." Carlisle's ledger compresses it to "Hal the almost-addict almost cries" — the affect that can't complete itself.