A Plot Begins When Somebody Has Something

I'm A Hopeless 19th-century Romantic.

I Shall Strip Away Layer After Layer Of Grime -- The Toffee-colored Varnish And Caked Soot Left By A Lifetime Of Dissembling -- Until I Come To The Very Thing Itself And Know It For What It Is. My Soul. My Self.

Where I Went, No One Could Follow. Yet Someone Managed To Hold My Hand.

All My Life I Have Lied. I Lied To Escape, I Lied To Be Loved, I Lied For Placement And Power; I Lied To Lie. It Was A Way Of Living; Lies Are Life's Almost-anagram.

We Carry The Dead With Us Only Until We Die Too, And Then It Is We Who Are Borne Along For A Little While, And Then Our Bearers In Their Turn Drop, And So On Into The Unimaginable Generations.