My Father Told Me Once That The

I Can't Explain The Alchemy That Transmuted One Evening Into The Equivalent Of Years Held Lightly In Common. The Only Way I Can Put It Is That We Recognized, Too Surely Even For Surprise, That We Shared The Same Currency.

Real Isn't What They Try To Tell You. Time Isn't. Grown-ups Hammer Down All These Markers, Bells, Schedules, Coffee-breaks, To Stake Down Time So You'll Start Believing It's Something Small And Mean, Something That Scrapes Flake After Flake Off Of Everything You Love Till There's Nothing Left; To Stake You Down So You Don't Lift Off And Fly Away, Somersaulting Through Whirlpools Of Months, Skimming Through Eddies Of Glittering Seconds, Pouring Handfuls Of Hours Over Your Upturned Face.

Only Teenagers Think Boring Is Bad. Adults, Grown Men And Women Who've Been Around The Block A Few Times, Know That Boring Is A Gift Straight From God. Life Has More Than Enough Excitement Up Its Sleeve, Ready To Hit You With As Soon As You're Not Looking, Without You Adding To The Drama.

But This Is What I Know About People Getting Ready To Walk Of The Edge Of Their Own Lives: They Want Someone To Know How They Got There. Maybe They Want To Know That When They Dissolve Into Earth And Water, That Last Fragment Will Be Saved, Held In Some Corner Of Someone's Mind; Or Maybe All They Want Is A Chance To Dump It Pulsing And Bloody Into Someone Else's Hands, So It Won't Weigh Them Down On The Journey. They Want To Leave Their Stories Behind. No One In All The World Knows That Better Than I Do.

What I Warn You To Remember Is That I Am A Detective. Our Relationship With Truth Is Fundamental But Cracked, Refracting Confusingly Like Fragmented Glass. It Is The Core Of Our Careers, The Endgame Of Every Move We Make, And We Pursue It With Strategies Painstakingly Constructed Of Lies And Concealment And Every Variation On Deception.