There Was A Hand In The Darkness,

I Finally Made Friends With My Father When I Entered My Twenties. We Had So Little In Common When I Was A Boy, And I Am Certain I Had Been A Disappointment To Him. He Did Not Ask For A Child With A Book, Off In Its Own World. He Wanted A Son Who Did What He Had Done; Swam And Boxed And Played Rugby, And Drove Cars At Speed With Abandon And Joy, But That Was Not What He Wound Up With.

This Is A Work Of Fiction. All The Characters In It, Human And Otherwise, Are Imaginary, Excepting Only Certain Of The Fairy Folk, Whom It Might Be Unwise To Offend By Casting Doubts On Their Existence. Or Lack Thereof.

There Are So Many Fragile Things, After All. People Break So Easily, And So Do Dreams And Hearts.

There Was Something About Being In The Vicinity Of Grahame Coats That Always Made Fat Charlie (a) Speak In Cliches And (b) Begin To Daydream About Huge Black Helicopters First Opening Fire Upon, Then Dropping Buckets Of Flaming Napalm Onto The Offices Of The Grahame Coats Agency. Fat Charlie Would Not Be In The Office In Those Daydreams. He Would Be Sitting In A Chair Outside A Little Cafe On The Other Side Of Aldwych, Sipping A Frothy Coffee And Occasionally Cheering At An Exceptionally Well-flung Bucket Of Napalm.

The Lord Of Dreams Learns That One Must Change Or Die, And Makes His Decision