It was strange, to be sitting near this gurgling river in the night, surrounded by empty grasslands, simply playing. His life since reaching adulthood—before it, really—had been a nonstop sprint. Event after event, almost every one a disaster. He’d stopped only when forced to rest. Now something peaceful within him wanted to call to mind their faces. Friends he’d lost. Friends whose fates he didn’t know. Women he’d loved. Others who had loved him. Never the two intersecting, as was the perverse way of his life.
