More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Light seeps in from the lamp glowing above the main door and from the various lights, large and small, on the machinery and rides dotted throughout the hall. The result is a misty, soupy light tinged with hues of EXIT-sign green, stand-by orange and power-button red.
Insurance companies, therefore, know two things: one, that people essentially have to take out insurance policies; and two, that a certain number of people, despite advice to the contrary, will inevitably set themselves on fire.
What do people usually look like after writing a will? I’m sure there’s no quintessential mien, though such people are on the cusp of the impossible: trying to influence life after death.
must admit, this conclusion isn’t based on rigorous logical probability, but on so-called gut feeling – something for which, as a mathematician who is serious about statistical analysis, I cannot say I have much time.
I know I am standing in the middle of my very own living room, my tie neat, but still it feels as though I have stepped into a new world, completely naked, without any form of protection.
We can only hope that our conversation, in which I channelled Perttilä the snake-oil salesman as though I had taken leave of my own body and handed it over to my former boss to use as he pleased, frightened Kristian just as much as it frightened me.
The moment he stuffed my travel card in his pocket, the matter was done and dusted. I realise it might have been done and dusted much earlier, and in light of the facts I could have made the decision much sooner, but the travel card sealed the deal. Even without the threat of a fifty-thousand-euro debt – you just don’t do that. You do not travel on another man’s travel card.
Ultimately, this is a classic example of the old adage that you first need to rule out the impossible: in this instance, turning back. Then you need to look at what options are left: there is only one direction – full steam ahead. You have to start with what can be resolved, then you can resolve something new in order to move forwards.
