It was as though the universe had drawn back a curtain and revealed a truth to me: only in fiction was there logic and sense. Good fortune and bad came in equal measure, the just were saved and the wicked punished. In real life, there was no limit to misfortune. You could fall and fall, and never reach the bottom. I had thought myself owed some happy twist of fate, some future good luck, but I knew now that it was only a dream. I was owed nothing. The ground beneath my feet was fragile and unstable, it could shift and break at any moment, no matter what I did.
