Why were you feeling low? Why does anyone? It creeps up on you from time to time.

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.

Come with me into the world and reclaim your independence. You stand to gain so much, and riches are the least of it.

Work will drive you crazy if you let it.

I sighed. ‘It doesn’t matter what we do. Money comes and goes.’ I shook my head. ‘It doesn’t matter and you know it doesn’t.

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

Most people are chained to their own fear and stupidity and haven’t the sense to level a cold eye at just what is wrong with their lives. Most people will continue on, dissatisfied but never attempting to understand why, or how they might change things for the better, and they die with nothing in their hearts but dirt and old, thin blood - weak blood, diluted - and their memories aren’t worth a goddamned thing.