No one has time any more for anyone else.
Well, after all, this is the age of the disposable tissue.
Blow your nose on a person, wad them, flush them away, reach for another, blow, wad, flush.
Everyone using everyone else's coattails.
How are you supposed to root for the home team when you don't even have a programme or know the names?
For that matter, what colour jerseys are they wearing as they trot out on to the field?
We have everything we need to be happy, but we aren't happy.
Let you alone! That's all very well, but how can I leave myself alone?
"People don't talk about anything."
"Oh, they must!"
"No, not anything. They name a lot of cars or clothes or swimming-pools mostly and say how swell! But they all say the same things and nobody says anything different from anyone else. And most of the time in the cafes they have the jokeboxes on and the same jokes most of the time, or the musical wall lit and all the coloured patterns running up and down, but it's only colour and all abstract."
For everyone nowadays knows, absolutely is certain, that nothing will ever happen to me. Others die, I go on. There are no consequences and no responsibilities. Except that there are.
You're afraid of making mistakes. Don't be. Mistakes can be profited by. Man, when I was young I shoved my ignorance in people's faces. They beat me with sticks. By the time I was forty my blunt instrument had been honed to a fine cutting point for me. If you hide your ignorance, no one will hit you and you'll never learn. Now, pick up your feet, into the firehouse with you!
"Hello! "
He said hello and then said, "What are you up to now?"
"I'm still crazy. The rain feels good. I love to walk in it.
"I don't think I'd like that," he said.
"You might if you tried."
"I never have."
She licked her lips. "Rain even tastes good."
"What do you do, go around trying everything once?" he asked.
"Sometimes twice." She looked at something in her hand.
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