I was angry and despairing but what was new? I was angry and despairing but what of it? My body is small and wizened but my anger is huge – I can barely contain it within this shrunken enfeebled body of mine. Time has not dealt kindly with me I reflect, and not for the first time either. I reflect on this fact every day. I’m only 48 years old, after all. A young man still, in the prime of life. I am afraid of the responsibilities of life it’s true – I won’t deny that. I cower under my bedclothes every day terrified that someone might call upon me to fulfil some or all of these nameless responsibilities, but that never happens. I have got away with it so far. I have escaped by cowering. It was not always thus however – it was not always thus. You see me before you today a crumpled deteriorated shell of a man, bald and nearly toothless, skinny little arms and legs and an incongruously enormous pot-belly, but it was not always thus. I remember the days when I was still able to rise to the challenges of life, unflinching and full of grim determination to succeed no matter what the cost. These days I am constantly quivering with terror at the thought that I might be called upon to do something. What, I know not, but anything is too much of me, anything at all. I flinch at the thought of doing something. “No, not me!” I cry out in anguish, “I can’t. I’m not able. Get someone else to do it…” I’m peeing myself with fear. It’s a terrible thing to be on the run as I am. When you’re on the run life just presses you harder and harder. It presses you relentlessly. You’d think it would be the other way around – you’d think that when you run away from life it would leave you alone somewhat. You would think that there would be at least some relief. But no – it works the other way. It works against you. The more you run away from life the more life chases you, the more it breaths over your shoulder like a pursuing demon. You’d wonder what the point of fleeing from life is, when just presses you more when you do so. It kind of defeats the object really. You don’t wonder though because you don’t have the time, you’re too busy fleeing for that. You’re on the hop and hopping is all you know. You’re a hopper. You might wonder about a lot of things if you had the time but you don’t. Fear is an unkind master and it barely gives you time to breathe, let alone do anything else. Did you ever know of a crueller master than fear? It leaves you with nothing, nothing at all. You’d wonder what it is that you’re afraid of in this case – seeing as how fear has already taken everything you own – but you don’t. You don’t have the luxury of having the time for wondering. You no longer have the luxury of asking any questions. The time for asking questions is over…