Written on the Dark

by Guy Gavriel Kay

Men and women live with a heart-deep uncertainty every morning when they wake. It is why they go to war, why they write poems, fall in and out of love, plan thefts on dark nights, or try to forestall them. Why they pray. Or refuse to pray. It is the uncertainty that shapes and defines our lives. The tears of the world, a longing for joy. Or even just safety. Just that.

As to the future, we have guesses, hopes, plans, apprehensions. Or perhaps, for some, there is no time for any of these, caught up as they are in the hard, endlessly demanding task of living, of staying alive.

dramatically varying recollections are more usual than easy agreement. We regard our own memories as truths, when they are often just the stories we have told ourselves over time. They become the truth we live by, or with. They become our lives.