I was thinking about the good times – the good old good times. I was thinking about how good the good times were. How very good they were. How marvellously wonderful they were. ‘How good the good old times were!’ I burst out, overwhelmed by the poignancy of the realisation that I had just had. The tears ran freely down my cheeks.

 

The happy things made me happy, the sad things made me sad, the interesting things made me interested and the funny things made me laugh. All the things, all the things. ‘The happy things are so good at making me happy!’ I said to myself. So good, so very good. There was a big smile on my face. A big sentimental smile.

 

The cheerful things always made me cheerful. I like the cheerful things. Do you like the cheerful things? Everyone likes the cheerful things! The cheerful things are so very cheerful. The cheerful things are so good at making us cheerful and glad – how could anyone not like them?

 

The good old cheerful things, the good old cheerful things. They’re just so cheerful. I don’t know how else to describe them. Sitting here as I am in my favourite chair I am overwhelmed by the profundity of my own thoughts. I am impressed by how true they are. I’m impressed by how very true they are. How very true.

 

‘My own thoughts are just so profound!’ I declared – ‘I ought to be a philosopher by rights!’ I contemplated taking up the life of a philosopher, roaming around as I pleased and benefiting the world with my wisdom. But then a loud chirping or chirruping sounds set up in my head, a sound just like a field full of crickets on a hot summer’s day, only louder. Much, much louder. My knees grew weak in an instant – I recognised that noise. I knew it for what it was. I knew the creatures that made it…

 

The crickets were practically screaming my head, only they weren’t crickets – that was the thing. They just sounded like them. In my mind’s eye they looked like them too – thousand upon thousand of big fat healthy brown crickets chirruping away in the hot summer sun. Singing their hearts out. The noise was deafening and I knew that was because they were feeding. They were feeding away. They were feeding away for all they were worth on my life energy. They were sucking it all up for themselves.

 

No wonder they were so fat and healthy and glossy-looking. No wonder they were singing so loudly – they were feasting and they love to feast. They don’t just love to feast, they live to feast and that’s just what they were doing right now! They had struck gold; they had found a rich vein and were mining it for all they were worth!

 

They were miners I realised and they had struck gold. They had struck the mother lode. They were miners and there were mining me. They were the green-flies of the soul. They were the horde of hungry aphids and I was the wilting rose!

 

Then the ear-splitting racket abruptly ceased and instead a terrible wind arose, a wind that blew my thoughts in all directions. It was the entropy wind – ‘You know what they say you know what they say you know what they say you know what they say you know what they say you know what they say you know what they say you know what they say you know what they say you know what they say you know what they say’ said the entropy wind. It whispered and howled and blew through every corner of me.

 

This was the wind of dissolution. This was the hot dry desert wind and it was blowing night and day. It never stopped blowing. It blew all before it. My own thoughts had become meaningless to me, like so much rubbish, like so much trash. My own thoughts had become meaningless to me and the desert wind was blowing them this way and that. My thoughts were being scattered to the four corners of the world like so many dead leaves…