Things were beginning to fall into place but I didn’t know what place that was… I didn’t know what the things were, and I didn’t know what the place that they were falling into was. So that was at least a start, I figured. It would all come clear in the end, I told myself. It would all make sense at some point or other. I was compliant with my fate for the simple reason that I didn’t have any choice! I decided to go along with it – not that my decision meant anything anyway. It didn’t mean anything to anyone; it didn’t even mean anything to me! That’s a rather demoralising place to be, as I think you’ll agree. That place where your own decisions don’t mean anything even to you. Not a good place o be – not a good place to be by any stretch of the imagination. Definitely not a good place. I was sailing in my little coracle, adrift upon a sea of anguish. ‘What hope is there for me at all,’ I wondered. What hope at all? What possible hope? I had made my decision to comply with my fate but now I was having second thoughts. I was starting to go back on myself. That’s one of the worst things you can do, in my book – that thing where you make a decision and then suddenly go back on yourself. You catch yourself out going then, you see. You catch yourself out good and proper. Your mind swings abruptly from the one possibility to the other – it swings wildly, erratically, unpredictably. You think you’re going to think one thing but then you think another instead. You make a choice and then all of a sudden you you wish you’d made the other choice. You catch yourself out; you steer the one way and then immediately steer the other, and the rickety little cockle-shell coracle you’re sailing in threatens to overturn completely. You can’t decide whether to comply with your fate or not to comply with it, you’re in two minds. You’re under pressure to come up with the right decision but it doesn’t matter what you decide. You’re hopelessly adrift in a sea of anguish, bobbing up and down erratically, vulnerable to whatever wave comes your way next. Which way should I steer, you wonder? Which way should I steer. The sky is growing darker by the minute now and the waves are getting choppy. The weather is turning ugly as you watch – a malignant purple stain is spreading from the horizon. A shrill wind has sprung up and it bodes no good. It bodes no good at all. You have never seen such a grim sky! Such a very grim sky. A dark malignant sky that bodes no good. You are sailing on a sea of anguish and you don’t know what way to turn. The light is malign – it filters through the lowering sky and makes the whole world look sick. You took a gamble but it didn’t pay off, and now you have no one to blame but yourself…
