One Of The Troubles Is This: The

If You Remember Your Past Too Well You Start Blaming Your Present For It. Look What They Did To Me, That's What Caused Me To Be Like This, It's Not My Fault. Permit Me To Correct You: It Probably Is Your Fault. And Kindly Spare Me The Details.

There Will Always Be Non-readers, Bad Readers, Lazy Readers - There Always Were.

The Next Day, When I Was Sober, I Thought Again About The Three Of Us, And About Time's Many Paradoxes. For Instance: That When We Are Young And Sensitive, We Are Also At Our Most Hurtful; Whereas When The Blood Begins To Slow, When We Feel Less Sharply, When We Are More Armoured And Have Learnt How To Bear Hurt, We Tread More Carefully.

Back Then, Things Were Plainer: Less Money, No Electronic Devices, Little Fashion Tyranny, No Girlfriends. There Was Nothing To Distract Us From Our Human And Filial Duty Which Was To Study, Pass Exams, Use Those Qualifications To Find A Job, And Then Put Together A Way Of Life Unthreateningly Fuller Than That Of Our Parents, Who Would Approve, While Privately Comparing It To Their Own Earlier Lives, Which Had Been Simpler, And Therefore Superior.

Life Seemed Even More Of A Guessing Game Than Usual.