We rode along in silence, thinking our private thoughts. Charlie and I had an unspoken agreement not to throw ourselves into speedy travel just after a meal. There were many hardships to our type of life and we took these small comforts as they came; I found they added up to something decent enough to carry on

I saw my bulky person in the windows of the passing storefronts and wondered, when will that man there find himself to be loved?

He is not bad, I don't think. Perhaps he is simply too lazy to be good.

Your skin is prickly from fatigue and pain and there is a hissing in your ears. Time passes and the pills are taking hold like a glowing white planet coming into view. A reverse eclipse. And you watch with your eyes closed. The white planet is half exposed, it grips your heart in its light and seems to be pulling you forward and now you feel that you are falling. You are awake but dreaming. "The earth is not beautiful but the universe is," you say.

All you will get from me is death.

I do not know what it was about that boy but just looking at him, even I wanted to clout him on the head. It was a head that invited violence.

I will admit he is unusual, but that is perhaps the closest I could come to complimenting him.