You’re unhappy, she said, you’re unhappy because you’re an adult, what adults like most of all is being good at something, and what’s easier to be good at than being unhappy, at least at first, with time it gets complicated, the truth is there’s a thin line between simple, adult unhappiness, and total, endless, despair, it’s this line that adults absolutely love to tread, what adults like best is to seem, in public, to be just about coping with their complex realities . . .

It’s elsewhere, you know, the world, we’re over here, he said, and it’s over there, it’s over the crest of that — is it a hill, yes, it’s most likely a hill, all the tell-tale signs, all the horrific giveaways, of a hill, there’s no element in nature more embarrassing than a hill, I’ve always had this feeling, he said, that 98% of natural phenomena, at least, are essentially failures, a hill is a failed mountain, he said, a lake is a failed sea, a shrub is a failed tree, a mouse is a failed rat, a dog is a failed wolf, a cat is a failed lynx, a stone is a failed cliff, snow is failed water, water is failed sun . . .