Worstie

“SHE only has to glance at this scene, and HER face instantly becomes disapproving. SHE considers her feelings unique when she looks at a tree; she sees a wonderful universe in a pinecone. Using a small mallet, she taps reality; she is a zealous dentist of language. The tops of simple spruces turn into lonesome, snowy peaks for her. The horizon is lacquered by a spectrum of colors. Far in the distance, huge, unidentifiable airplanes glide past, their gentle thunder barely audible. They are the giants of music and the giants of poetry, wrapped in enormous camouflage. Hundreds of thousands of bits of data flash through HER well-trained mind. An insane, intoxicated mushroom of smoke shoots up, and then, in an ash-gray act of vomiting, slowly descends to the ground. A fine, gray dust quickly covers all the apparatuses, all the test tubes and capillary tubes, all the flasks and spiral condensers. HER room turns to solid rock. Gray. Neither cold nor warm. In between. A pink nylon curtain crackling at the window, not stirred by any puff of wind. The interior furnished neatly. Untenanted. Unowned. The piano keys begin to sing under fingers. The gigantic tail of culture-refuse moves forward, softly rustling as it curls around, closing into a tight circle, millimeter by millimeter.”
― Elfriede Jelinek, The Piano Teacher

“It was by this time about nine in the morning, and the first fog of the season. A great chocolate-colored pall lowered over heaven, but the wind was continually charging and routing these embattled vapors; so that as the cab crawled from street to street, Mr. Utterson beheld a marvelous number of degrees and hues of twilight; for here it would be dark like the black end of evening; and there would be a glow of a rich, lurid brown, like the light of some strange conflagration; and here for a moment, the fog would be quite broken up and a haggard shaft of daylight would glance in between the swirling wreaths. The dismal quarter of Soho seen under these changing glimpses, with its muddy ways, and slatternly passengers, and its lamps, which had never been extinguished or had been kindled afresh to combat this mournful reinvasion of darkness, seemed, in the lawyer's eyes, like a district of some city in a nightmare.”
― Robert Louis Stevenson, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde