Dispel Illusion (Impossible Times, #3)

by Mark Lawrence

I had left that boy behind in my wake, just as we all abandon the children we were.

Love had come into my world unexpected, unannounced, like a gentle breeze, hardly noticed at first, yet where it wandered it moved everything. Now there was no end to where I would let it carry me.

Perhaps it would be the same even if I lived to be eighty. Perhaps it’s the same for everyone, no matter how many years they’re trailing behind them. Always the child standing there wearing an old man’s clothes, an old skin hanging from old bones, and wondering where the days went, remembering how marvellous it had been to fritter away so many slow and sunny days. And wanting more.

The stories of our lives don’t behave themselves; they don’t have clear beginnings, and even death isn’t a clear end. We just do what we can, we take what kindness and joy we find along the way, we ride the rapids as best we’re able.