Lux Aeterna

by

Steven Mayo

Book I The Meager

Chapter 15 Final Mending

"Stop!"

"What?"

"Put him down. Here!"

"What is it?"

"He's not breathing…"

Gipson placed Seville on his back in the dew-moist grass, and felt under his nose for signs of life, but the rogue had turned cold. Edrick circled around nervously, drumming his fingers on his robe and saying short prayers under his breath. The rollicking, airy sounds of the ocean crashed in the background, and the early morning sun was blocked by a wooly veil of gray clouds stretching as far as could be seen. Complexions of subtle pink and dark turquoise painted over the scene.

"Can't we do something?" Edrick asked hopelessly.

"I don't know about this stuff, this is what we have cure spells for," Gipson said, scratching the place where some of his hair had burned away and creasing his lips furtively into a frown.

"Is he still bleeding?"

Gipson undraped the tattered cloth they had dressed the wound in and wiped away what blood there was that hadn't dried to the skin. The cut was ghastly to look at; human flesh scored and stitched together like fabric. However, the bleeding had stopped.

"No, that's stopped, but he already lost so much, I just don't think…"

"Don't think it!" Edrick snapped and the knight nodded in return. Seconds passed like hours. Edrick eventually fell to his knees and took the dying man with his hands on either side of his face and looked, for once not at the wound, but at the face, and pleaded for survival.

"Come on, Seville, come on! Don't die on me! You can't!" He didn't cry like he expected, perhaps he was too overcome with emotion to do even that. "I couldn't even save you. I'm the cleric and I couldn't even save you!"

Edrick growled in anger and thrust himself away and began to pace once again.

"His heart still beats, Edrick, he is not dead yet…" the knight comforted as he felt for the pulse at Seville's throat. Edrick had nothing to say to it.

Gipson sat on his knees and overlooked the rogue who was utterly still and silent, so much so it was surreal. He seemed even quieter than the dead somehow. Gipson placed a hand just below Seville's heart and entwined his other hand atop that, and then he pushed with a firm stroke into Seville's chest.

"What is that?"

"Saw it once before, man had stopped breathing, thought it might be worth … a try," said Gipson, adding another stroke. Seville's limp body shook but nothing resembling life returned.

"You could hurt him!" Edrick shrieked.

"Anything's worth the risk right now!" Gipson pumped again; nothing.

"He's turning gray!" trilled the priest.

"You will not die on me!" The knight barked hotly and he powerfully jousted his hand into Seville's chest once more. The rogue immediately started coughing frantically, hacking fresh clots of blood from his mouth that splayed into the air and mostly landed on his cheeks and forehead. He coughed for the whole of thirty seconds, and Gipson or Edrick thought to do nothing but stand back and see what happened. Finally the fit passed and Seville's lungs filled with lively oxygen, his breaths were deep and caressing. But his eyes stayed closed and his body basically motionless.

"Seville…" Edrick whispered hopefully.

The rogue slowly opened his eyes and blinked several times. The frigid lavender hues of the eastern sunrise, still captured in clouds, playing across his moist eyes so that they glittered like marbles. Besides the thin, dark iris, they were solid white. A minute passed, with only more silence from any of them as the rogue watched the crown of storm clouds like an awestruck newborn. Finally, Edrick spoke again, still at a meek, frightful whisper.

"Seville…"

The rogue turned his head and the white, red, and dusty brown colors of Edrick's robes slowly set into focus, followed just after by Edrick's trembling and more innocently boyish than ever face. The priest's hands were brought together into a prayer.

"Eddie…" Seville said weakly, and his eyes closed again.

"No, stay with us!!!" Edrick shouted, but Seville was already asleep. "Seville!"

"Let him be!" Gipson ordered as Edrick dropped to Seville's side and shook him, "Edrick! Let him be."

"What if he doesn't…"

"He's breathing and he's alive, that's enough to ask for now."

Edrick peered at Gipson like a lost puppy, but finally nodded and stood back up, unable to pull his eyes then from Seville, waiting for him to wake once again. He flicked his bowled hair downwards on each side.

"How could he do it, Master Gipson?"

The knight inhaled and exhaled deeply, as if a child had just asked him the big question.

"I don't … I'm not sure I understand the doctor's actions. Besides, this…" indicating Seville with a wave of his hand, "…was an accident. Sylum would never hurt Seville intentionally, I'm sure of that at least. This is just a situation that got way out of hand.

"But why?"

"He tried to warn me, I think," Gipson spoke very slowly and bitterly. "Yesterday, in the forest, he tried to warn me that this might happen, but I didn't see it. I didn't realize exactly what he was saying."

"What did he say?" Edrick was looking for things to take his mind away from Seville, who was still breathing softly and quietly.

"I didn't catch it then, I tried too hard to be myself, you know, optimistic and firm, but unlike most people that didn't have any effect on the doctor. In a roundabout way, what he told me was that failure wasn't an option. But that's just what we've done…"

"What?"

"Failed," Gipson answered shortly, and then his lips curled more tightly. "I've never failed, not like this."

"First time for everything?" Edrick said, trying to cast a gentler light on what Gipson was obviously brooding very deeply inside.

"Yes sir, Edrick, yes sir. Things change, and once again I wasn't ready for it. I acted rashly, stupidly. I … I murdered our companion."

"At that moment he would have done the same, Master Gipson!"

"Yeah, but at least he seemed to have a reason. Me, I'm just stuck, stuck in how I am. I'm too old, Edrick."

"Stop turning this into self-abuse," Edrick said with a rather sharp twist of his voice. "What happened, happened, and though it shouldn't have, it did. That's something we're just gonna have to get over. Far as I'm concerned it's everyone's fault, because we've spent all this time trying to be something we're not. The professor's death proves it, we're not light warriors. We're nothing! We're meager!"

"We're just us, Edrick, just us, and we tried to do something good. It came back and got us this time, but you know what, at least we tried, and we tried hard."

Edrick opened his mouth to speak, but realized he actually had nothing to say. He checked Seville over again; he was the same, then Edrick swallowed thickly and just nodded, letting the empty sounds of this shady morning fill the silence. Five uneasy minutes rolled sluggishly by.

"You see that?" Gipson asked, pointing towards the ocean.

"What?" Edrick asked back as he scanned the tides.

"The waves…" said Gipson importantly, "…so violent."

A small stretch of grass lay before them and then it slowly was overtaken by a wide beach that itself was washed away by a swelling ocean of gray. Murky crests collided into each other and hissed jets of water tumultuously onto the beachhead, the waves heaving to incredible heights in the distance and shuttling in at perilous speeds, like some great play to appease the dormant depths. The stormy waters raged to the very end of their sight.

"The sailors have said the sea is too dangerous these days," Edrick responded timidly, looking for Gipson's point.

"But feel the air," Gipson suggested, lifting his arm out.

"What?"

"The wind…"

Edrick realized how static the atmosphere was, not a single current of wind beating upon him. It was completely still.

"There's none," the priest responded.

"And yet the seas rage…" Gipson mused, and Edrick had no thought to add.

"Come on. Let's go."

Gipson checked for signs of life once more, and then took Seville back into his arms.

"The road is long."

Gipson and Edrick walked for the rest of the day.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Though the portentous clouds had passed by the second day, the air remained still and temperate, the ground beaten without sincerity by the rays of a cold sun. Things had begun to noticeably change, most immediately the incredible staleness of the dead wind. And as if the jostling motion of those winds had given the trees reason enough to survive, they too were dying. Entire patches of forest had their floors strewn with a carpet of orange and brown leaves, wholly unbefitting the summer. And the bark was already graying, not like the hibernating trees of winter but the stony, petrified trees of the haunted forest. It was not so far gone that death was impending, but it was unmistakably apparent, and perhaps that was enough.

By the peak of the afternoon the air was chill; cold in some supernatural way that traced unceasing trickles down Edrick's spine. Even though the clouds had passed, it was not bright as a summer day was. The vividness of the entire world had been muted. They both saw it, Edrick and Gipson, but couldn't think of what to say on it. The priest found himself wishing that Professor Sylum was there; he might have known something. Despite the immense respect that Edrick had for Herrik Gipson, he couldn't help this nagging feeling that they were lost, if not physically, then some other way. How could something so simple go so wrong, he wondered with a sour taste in his mouth. Most of all he was tired, tired of pain.

"No wildlife," Gipson said randomly, assuming that Edrick might not have considered that one, which to be honest, he hadn't. The priest nodded anyways.

"No birds."

The only sounds that played in the air were their own footsteps and the sagging noise of the ocean, which fought its civil war as tempestuously as ever.

"Makes our trip a little safer, I suppose," Gipson said for no real reason, conversation maybe.

"We never came across much trouble we didn't get ourselves into."

"That's true," Gipson returned matter-of-factly. "But I'm not much in the mood for imps and wolves. They don't seem to be around."

Edrick heard that and looked at Gipson's injuries, which the knight had never let him heal, but in a day and a half they already looked much less severe. The way Gipson healed was unrealistically fast, though given that he'd taken a fire potion at immediate range, Gipson was still not looking his best. Along with the two steeples of hair that were strikingly absent, his eyebrows were gone, along with most of his arm hair. He'd washed the blood away in an especially shallow stream, and came out looking like some beaten, sad version of himself. This was a Herrik Gipson that no one had ever seen; this was the first time that Herrik Gipson looked old.

"I'm tired," said Edrick.

"At least a little further, I want to get past the forest. We're less likely to be attacked on the other side," in all truth, Gipson just didn't want to stop moving. The thought of resting at a time like this was despicable to him. "Besides, the further we get from the Temple of Fiends, the better, right?"

They had already made many miles from the temple, but Edrick found he could agree that farther was always better when talking about the dark palace. He was realizing as they walked solemnly along the Western shores that he had made it out just fine. He'd only been injured once and never almost died. Realizing that made him angry, and when he thought of how helpless he was to aid Seville, he felt useless. Not good for battle, not good for magic, not good for handling people, not good for anything. Edrick didn't want to talk much after that.

Things were uncomfortable. They both felt like they were some place out of time, not really walking through the Cornerian countryside but in some dimensional equal without consequence. They felt unreal, unable to grapple themselves once more to the constraints of being. It was disorienting.

"Uh…" said a voice.

"Edrick! Here!"

"Seville?"

"Uh…"

The rouge's eyes were just opened, thought his limbs still hung where they would. He didn't seem at first to understand where he was, and was content to absorb the blue-gray sky above him that sluggishly melded into a single solid picture.

"Seville?" Edrick asked again with all eagerness.

Seville brought his right arm to his scalp and scratched aim it aimlessly, and then he put it back down as if it had tuckered him out. Piece by piece he realized what was going on.

"Seville?" Edrick tried once more.

"Set me down," Seville managed to say to Gipson, who had already stopped walking. The knight placed him gently on the grass and took a step back to give him room. Seville seemed short of breath, as he absorbed deep inhalations as he lay on the ground with his left arm straight out to his side and his right arm tucked over onto the healthy side of his chest, still looking not at his friends but at the dull of hues of the sky, still not entirely aware of his surroundings. Certainly he did not know where or when.

"You gonna stay with us this time?" Gipson asked, for the first time in awhile putting on one of his friendly smiles.

"What day is it?"

"You slept for a whole day, Seville. The temple is two mornings past."

"Where are we?" Seville questioned further, collecting his bearings.

"We're on the western coast, we've been trailing it since yesterday. We've another thirty miles to the city."

"City? Corneria?" Seville asked, presently slow on the uptake, with even a little edginess in his question.

"Of course. It's time to get you and Edrick home." Gipson was cordial with his words and delivered them with a grin. Edrick remained antsy on the sidelines.

"Home…" Seville mused, and he looked like he wanted to sit up, but when he moved his left arm to press himself up he yelped and felt a sour tug on his chest.

"Probably don't want to move that arm just yet. Don't strain yourself. Just relax and concentrate on being awake. I think you're gonna be okay," Gipson said that last part with a noticeable wink to Edrick, who exhaled and said a thank you to some higher power.

Seville saw Edrick for the first time and smiled at him, and then he looked back at Gipson, and then back again.

"Man, you guys look terrible!"

Gipson beamed at him.

"You're no prize yourself, Seville," Edrick joked, sitting down with his legs crossed so it would be easier on Seville's neck. Gipson did the same. Despite the bout of benevolence, when they looked to Seville once more his face had considerably fallen, and his eyes were indistinct in their aim, as if he was thinking. They both knew immediately what about, but to Seville to ask the question seemed frightful. He did so slowly and with a dire shift in his voice.

"What happened?" is what he asked. "To the professor?"

A thick, quiet moment sauntered by; Edrick looked to Gipson to answer.

"You were hit very badly by his sword, and though I'm sure he didn't intend it, I responded anyway and ran him through. We couldn't cure you, of course, because of the ghost rot, but Sylum was able to close your wound by…" Gipson spoke next as if he still didn't believe it, "…sewing it up."

Seville nodded very slowly and flicked away the moist cloth covering his wound. When he saw the horrid sight he shot his head away and covered it back up.

"It'll take a lot of time to heal, you're lucky to be alive."

"I know that," Seville said shortly, and Edrick thought he knew what was really on Seville's mind at that point.

"I offered to cure him, Seville, I wanted to. But he wouldn't have it. I wanted to, I really did. I did."

"Without Edrick's cure there is no chance he would have survived his injury. I pierced his liver," Gipson said. He sounded incredibly forlorn to be recounting the bitter details but would not lie to Seville about the situation. They had hidden the fact of Seville's ghost rot so long and it had nearly claimed a life. From now on he would be upfront with the truth.

Seville nodded again.

"Why'd he do it, Seville?" the priest asked him, knowing that Sylum's only real friend in Corneria had been the rogue. Seville thought on it, but his memories of the events were terribly distorted. He still wasn't exactly sure what had happened. But one thing did stick in his mind like a needle: his most respected equal, Darrin Sylum, had betrayed him, had chosen fame over the lives of thousands. In his right hand, Seville gripped an angry fist.

"I don't know, Eddie…" was all his heart could bring him to say. "I don't know."

"Did he regret it, do you think?" Edrick asked.

"The professor is a man that would regret dying, even for something he believed in," Seville answered.

"He said he was sorry," said Gipson, "And I believed him."

"I would have too," said Seville.

They sat and listened to the churning ocean as Seville became more and more acquainted with his motor functions and he learned to avoid the gripping pain that surprised him from sudden jerks of his torso. Now it seemed only a matter of time and patience. Things would mend, as they always find a way to do. Seville, too, was noticing the empty voice of the air, free from birds and wind. A dark dream continued to play in his head.

"I'm afraid to go home," said Seville.

"Dunnings…" Edrick whispered. The knight gauged his words for a moment and placed them cautiously.

"You left your godfather on uneasy terms, I know, but he will welcome you. Perhaps there is one silver lining to your injured state. Certainly he can't come down to hard on you in your current condition."

"No, maybe not, but that will pass. What will always remain is that I've let him down once again."

"How?" Edrick argued. "What have you done?"

"Think about it, Eddie. Exactly how warmly do you expect our return to be received? I don't know what Domino was really intending with his article, but I could guess a couple of the effects it's going to have, or excuse me, already has had. We're a laughing stock, we just haven't returned to the public eye yet to really feel it."

"But Dunnings knows you?"

"And people know that," Seville said with conviction. "I've reflected badly on him. Again."

"I don't believe it is as bad as that," Herrik Gipson comforted. "Either way, what we have tried to do is admirable and I don't think people are going to look past that fact, despite how poorly we may have carried ourselves on occasion."

"It will be hard to explain," Seville suggested as he finally managed to sit up, with an acceptable tinge of pain down his side. "About the princess, I mean. What will we do?"

"Yeah," Edrick agreed, "What about Garland and Domino, and the King's war? It's still a reality isn't it?"

"We will wait and see, and if there is help we can render then we should do so, but I'm afraid our part in this tale is done. I recommend you both keep your heads low, try to avoid the spotlight."

Edrick stood up and stretched, all the while throwing his hands accusingly at Seville and scuffing his feet through the grass.

"Easy for him, maybe, but I'll have to report to the minister. Perhaps you didn't know this but a priest leaving his order without the direct sanction of the minister is a bit of a misstep in the career of religious authority."

Edrick seemed to be getting nervous once again.

"Even to save the world?" Seville joked.

"Oh please! Edrick Valance? Save the world? I don't think that one's gonna work, Seville!"

The rogue cuffed his chin a few times, pretending to be thinking on some difficult thesis, and then he nodded his head in approval.

"Yeah, you're probably right!"

Edrick returned an insincere smirk and chuckled.

"Don't worry, I'll put in a good word for ya with the minister. Tell him you performed masterfully. Cast spells and everything!"

"Shut up!" The two of them laughed and Gipson delighted in the chance to smile with them. He brushed his fire red hair upwards and stood to stretch as well. They laughed almost like they were actually having fun after all of this. Things mended further, just like they always do.

"So what about you, Master Gipson…" Seville questioned, craning his neck and squinting his eyes to see the mighty warrior against the brightening background of afternoon sun. Gipson gave him a cock-eyed look. "What are you going to do when you get back? Edrick and I have decided that we're screwed, hopefully you've got somethin' better lined up!"

"Oh, just another tale in the life of Herrik Gipson, I suppose. I still have a book tour to do. I wonder how this'll affect my sales," he glinted a clever smile at them with that, but then he stopped moving around in the grass and thought for a moment. His grin dimmed a bit. "First, I'll have to report to the Knights, give'em the heads up on what Garland and Domino are planning."

"And the princess!" Edrick added.

"Right, and the princess. If their little invention pops up anywhere I'll sound the alert, that'd be my duty. No, for the time being, Gents, I don't think I'm going anywhere."

The almost festive reaches of the conversation tapered away and a gloomy atmosphere crept over them; Gipson with his suddenly fierce eyes perched on the horizon line, Edrick pacing about with his fingers wrapped, and Seville looking down at his legs and chewing the air like rubber sap.

"What if Eliv starts a war?" Seville asked the silence, and Gipson picked up the tail end after a quiet moment.

"We can only hope he won't, and if so, that he can be stopped before it escalates to the scale that Garland predicts."

"But how can you cause something that … huge?" The priest asked with a hint of disgust in his voice. It was more a moral question than one of capability. Seville opened his mouth but Gipson beat him there.

"It doesn't seem possible, and though I'll admit that I don't have the brain for magical devices that I'm sure either of you have, Sylum seemed to believe that it would work. And so, I guess that adds enough credibility for me."

"You didn't feel the dream, Master Gipson, like I did. Or even you, Eddie. Going through what I went through, I believe … no, I know, that they can do it. They can do anything."

"But do you believe why they are doing it?" Edrick asked.

"You mean, war to end war? No, not for a second."

"Nor I," Gipson interrupted.

"The professor understood them best. They're politicians, they're in it for power."

"And as a general rule, I never trust a man that can summon demons," Gipson said randomly. The joke wasn't appreciated.

"No…" said Seville to fill the uncomfortable silence. Whenever that quiet crept over them they each realized how on edge they were. What Edrick felt made him understand that lost feeling a little more, than surreal, otherworldly state being he still thought he was inhabiting. What it really was was paranoia. The heavy air and dozing silences caged them in claustrophobia. This was something that Seville then proved he also detected, as he looked at the nearest lining of livid trees.

"They're out there," he said warningly.

"Yes," agreed Gipson solemnly.

"Just out there planning our doom."

"Nothing we can do about them today," the knight offered, wanting to toss Seville away from such a worrisome subject. What he wanted now was only for the rogue to heal, not rack his brains over what he may or may not have been able to control. With a hint of bitterness, Seville seemed to agree.

"There are still a lot of balls in the air, aren't there?" he half-queried.

"We'll catch them one at a time," Gipson said. "Whatever they may bring."

"Right!" the priest joined.

"It'll be complicated," the rogue warned.

"Well…" Gipson started, with a nostalgic smile. "Things change, don't they? Situations change. People change. All we can ever do is be ready for it. For once."

"Excellent!" Seville almost cheered. "I've got it! A little game to set us on our changing ways. No more static."

To his own and the others' surprise, Seville pushed off with his good arm and stood up, gleefully bright. If it had hurt it all he wasn't showing it now.

"Right now, think of one piece of advice and offer it out. What can we do to better ourselves for the time to come? Master Gipson, you first."

"What?" and the knight laughed heartily, looking even a tad bashful before hunkering down and looking as supremely serious as he could manage despite the other two cackling at his efforts. "Advice, huh? Well…"

Gipson scratched the fresh bald spot on his head, squinted his eyes, and even pretended to dance with anticipation of his own sage wisdom. Seville and Edrick got a definite kick out of it, but finally the knight waved them down and closed in.

"Okay, a piece of advice from me to you, in case we get to Corneria, I go off on tour, and never see you again, take this with you always." He paused for effect; each of them was smiling. "Do something different with every endeavor of your life, because you will not know it when the last one is upon you."

"Thoughtful sentiment," Seville mused with an overly fake stern impression on his face, which Gipson shook off like he would a heckler.

"Yeah, yeah," he said, "Good thing, you're next!"

"Nope! My game, my choice, and I choose to go last. Eddie, you're up."

"Ummm…" thought the priest, buying time. "I don't know, Seville."

"Please tell me that being skittish and indecisive isn't your sage wisdom."

"Quiet!" commanded Edrick, "I'm thinking!"

"I was wondering what the grinding sound was!" Seville and Gipson laughed.

Edrick thought it over, thought everything over. A sullen image played over and again in his mind, so potent it was there on the backs of his eyelids when he closed him. It was of his final sight of Sylum, stabbed and seconds from death, kneeling hopelessly in the middle of the temple room, denying his chance for life. Edrick had said he was sorry, and realized that the fact that he had let the man die would always follow his dreams. Sylum had asked Edrick to not cure him, but the priest felt strongly inside that at the time, it wasn't the professor's decision to make. Edrick knew his advice.

"Okay…"

"Finally!" Seville joked further, but when he saw how Edrick's face had turned, so did his own. Edrick spoke eulogistically.

"Never … never forget who your friends are, even when they seem to."

Both Gipson and Seville even nodded like one does to a preacher in a eulogy, and perhaps in its own way, that's what Edrick's statement was: Darrin Sylum's eulogy.

A moment passed in which even the ocean seemed to stand still, and Edrick, nervous evermore of attracting attention, broke the ice.

"Your turn, Seville, don't try to get out of it."

"I already had mine prepared, thank you very much. Ready?"

"And waiting!" Gipson smirked.

"Well, you know what a life of crime has taught me, fellas?"

"What's that?"

"The world is just full of suckers!"

"That's your advice?" Edrick scoffed.

"No, no." Seville shot a haughty glance at Edrick who let it fly right past him with a delicious grin. "The world is full of suckers, and well, sometimes even they can be happy."

Both Edrick and Gipson stared at him as if they expected him to say more, and Edrick tossed his hands out when it became obvious that he wasn't.

"I'm not sure I understand it, Seville."

"Yeah? Well, I tried my best. Sometimes that's all we can do."

"Hey! Two for the price of one!" Gipson coined.

"Right," Seville responded with a chuckle, and then he waved his good arm past both of them and said, "Enough! That deed is done, I'm tired of talking. Let's go home."

"Can you walk?"

"Of course, I can. If I've proven nothing else to you so far, I would think it would be that I have a high threshold for pain."

"To it, then!" Edrick rallied on.

Just as they turned, Gipson paused and stopped Seville with his hand.

"I forgot," he said, pulling a thin, leather-bound volume out of his pocket and handing it to Seville. "He asked me to give you this."

"What is it?"

"He wouldn't let me read it and find out. But it was his utmost concern in the moment. Obviously very important to him."

Still unable to use his left arm with any manner of precision, Seville tossed the book over in his right hand and looked the blank cover up and down, and then he carefully opened the front away to a delicately printed title page.

"The Rogue, by Darrin Sylum," is what Seville read aloud, and impressed but somehow stricken look drawing tightly on his face. He wiped it away just as quickly. "Huh! I didn't know he wrote fiction."

"I imagine there will be some significance for you here," Gipson said.

"No doubt, but, another day, I think." Seville looked at Edrick and the knight very sincerely and certainly. "I'm not ready to open that up just yet."

"Yeah, well, one of the good things about the future is that it's always ahead of you. You've got all the time in the world."

"For some things, you need it. Now where were we? Right! Let's get out of here!"

And there, the three friends set off for Corneria, not knowing what they would find when they got there, or which paths they would choose given those options. Seville wanted to think about everything, but somehow found it hard, with any coherency, to think about anything. Certainly Sylum was one of those powerful things that fought for play in his mind, but it was such a hectic subject he did his best to will it away. He thought of Edrick and Gipson too, those two who walked at either side of him and saw him through to his ends. Admiration swelled, almost painfully in his heart. He thought of Dunnings, thought of what he would say when he returned to the Lux Aeterna and met the man who had looked away from him when he'd left. And on some scale he thought of the war that may or may not happen, whether or not he did a thing about it, thought about it like poet's think of their grim truth, always there and never there.

But, most of all, he thought of how hard life would be in the future, and what he would do when it finally got there.