Top hat with a bullet hole through it.
Scrawled in Jeff’s letter was “It must be hard to convey how bitter it is to be wished, for somebody who’s tried so hard to be, a ‘happy’ birthday. It’s the sound of an expectation you cannot reach, at least not now, not while you’re driving along a long, lightless tunnel. It’s the sound of people not knowing that all you dream these days is a parade of former and future friends’ asking you ‘How are you doing?’ and your replying ‘I’m OK.’ Because in this nightmare you are as you are when you are awake, and you lie to this horribly invasive question. So Happy Lincoln’s Birthday! Lincoln segregated his friends and then shot himself, I guess in that sense we are not much different.” The ensuing coroner’s report attempted to blame both how Jeff’s intensive drug therapy and the public education system had failed him, also the first ten minutes of Up, which—let’s face it—couldn’t have helped.