A bird named Vlad the Impaler, who spent the bulk of his life hissing and looking at himself in a little mirror hanging[...] in the iron cage, a mirror so dull and cloudy with Vlad the Impaler’s bird-spit that Vlad the Impaler could not possibly have seen anything more than a vague yellowish blob behind a pane of mist[...] A bird that not infrequently literally bit the hand that fed it, before returning to dance in front of its own shapeless reflection, straining and contorting always for a better view of itself.

Auteur: David Foster Wallace