the V.R.5 wallow, continued: eat if you have to play, stand on one foot
I’ll eat if I’m going to have to play. [...] are you going to get up and go up and get dressed and stand on one foot with that opera thing on at some point?
Context
Two glimpses of the athletic body reduced to its function. Withdrawal has killed Hal's appetite — he'll "eat if I'm going to have to play," fuel taken only in service of performance, the body a machine gassed up only when it's due to run. And Pemulis prods him toward the ankle-rehab drill: "stand on one foot with that opera thing on" (cf. 165's prescribed one-foot standing-therapy, Schtitt's opera). Even flattened by withdrawal, the day's shape is still the regimen's shape — eat to play, stand on one foot to heal the ankle. (Cross-ref 165, no duplicate blockquote.)