The old endless chain of love, tolerance, indifference, aversion and disgust

The earth makes a sound as of sighs and the last drops fall from the emptied cloudless sky. A small boy, stretching out his hands and looking up at the blue sky, asked his mother how such a thing was possible. Fuck off, she said.

The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new.

I happened to look up and there it was. All over and done with, at last. I sat on for a few moments with the ball in my hand and the dog yelping and pawing at me. (Pause.) Moments. Her moments, my moments (Pause.) The dog's moments.

How do you manage it, she said, at your age? I told her I'd been saving up for her all my life.

It's so nice to know where you're going, in the early stages. It almost rids you of the wish to go there.