A few hours earlier, less than a single day, Walter Benjamin’s mind had existed intact; then, sometime in the night, he’d opened a bottle of pills, put one on his tongue, and another, and had swallowed, and repeated the process until he knew he’d had enough. Then the drug had gone to work, shutting down the intricate machinery of the body, breaking its fine linkages, silencing its humming wires, dimming the electric light of the brain until it went dark. That beautiful brain ceasing to send its beacon out into the night.
