The flash would prove that proton decay really happens. The flash would mean that the matter of the proton - the solid stuff - had turned into the energy of the flash (E-mc2). Totally. Nothing left behind. No ash. No smoke. No smell. Nada. One moment it's there, the next moment - pffft - gone. What would it mean? Only this: Nothing lasts. Nothing. Because everything that exists is made of protons.

She was elusive. She was today. She was tomorrow. She was the faintest scent of a cactus flower, the flitting shadow of an elf owl. We did not know what to make of her. In our minds we tried to pin her to a cork board like a butterfly, but the pin merely went through and away she flew.

And so I'm me again, Leo. Thanks to the example of a five-year-old. I'm hoping you wouldn't want it any other way. Not that you weren't flattered, right? I mean, to have a girl two thousand miles away going to pieces over you, weeping at the mere memory of you, losing her appetite, losing herself and self-respect - well, that's trophy enough for any guy's ego, huh?

Because that's what you do, you stand up for your best friend. And you eat lunch with him and talk with him and share secrets and laugh a lot and go places and do stuff, and when you wake up in the morning, he's the first person you think of.

We long to be found, hoping our searchers have not given up and gone home.

The kids who leave their favorite authors behind do not in fact leave us utterly abandoned, but in due time drive children of their own to the bookstore and the post office.

Star people are rare.