We rounded the headland past a memorial to “The Fallen.” Too tired to get my glasses out and read the whole plaque, I didn’t check if it was for the fallen in war, fallen from the cliff, or to us, fallen from society, fallen from hope, fallen from life. Of course the memorial must have been to the men who had died in the wars. Dead, gone without chance for self-pity. I tightened the hip belt on my pack, shut the door on the whining voice and kept walking. Life is now, this minute, it’s all we have. It’s all we need.
