It was my first big chance, but here I was, sitting back and letting it run through my fingers like so much water.

Outcast on a cold star, unable to feel anything but an awful helpless numbness. I look down into the warm, earthy world. Into a nest of lovers' beds, baby cribs, meal tables, all the solid commerce of life in this earth, and feel apart, enclosed in a wall of glass.

I had hoped, at my departure, I would feel sure and knowledgeable about everything that lay ahead -- after all, I had been "analyzed." Instead, all I could see were question marks.

Only I wasn't steering anything, not even myself.

The only thing I could think of was turkey neck and turkey gizzards and I felt very depressed.

I suppose if I gave myself the chance I could be an alcoholic.

That afternoon my mother had brought me the roses. "Save them for my funeral," I'd said.