Time Works So Hard For Us, If

There Was A Time When I Believed I Was The Redeemed One, The Boy Borne Safely Home On The Ebb Of Whatever Freak Tide Carried Peter And Jamie Away. Not Any More. In Ways Too Dark And Crucial To Be Called Metaphorical, I Never Left That Wood.

My Memories Of Them Had Rubbed Thin With Overuse, Worn To Frail Color Transparencies Flickering On The Walls Of My Mind...

It's Easy To Slide Into Believing You're The Hypnotist Here, The Mirage Master, The Smart Cookie Who Knows What's Real And How All The Tricks Are Done. The Fact Is You're Still Just Another Slack-jawed Mark In The Audience. No Matter How Good You Are, This World Is Always Going To Be Better At This Game. It's More Cunning Than You Are, It's Faster And It's A Whole Lot More Ruthless. All You Can Do Is Try To Keep Up, Know Your Weak Spots And Never Stop Expecting The Sucker Punch.

I Read A Lot. I Always Have, But In Those Two Years I Gorged Myself On Books With A Voluptuous, Almost Erotic Gluttony. I Would Go To The Local Library And Take Out As Many As I Could, And Then Lock Myself In The Bedsit And Read Solidly For A Week. I Went For Old Books, The Older The Better - Tolstoy, Poe, Jacobean Tragedies, A Dusty Translation Of Laclos - So That When I Finally Resurfaced, Blinking And Dazzled, It Took Me Days To Stop Thinking In Their Cool, Polished, Crystalline Rhythms.

There's A Spanish Proverb," He Said, "that's Always Fascinated Me. "take What You Want And Pay For It, Says God.'" "i Don't Believe In God," Daniel Said, "but That Principle Seems, To Me, To Have A Divinity Of Its Own; A Kind Of Blazing Purity. What Could Be Simpler, Or More Crucial? You Can Have Anything You Want, As Long As You Accept That There Is A Price And That You Will Have To Pay It.