Like two old philosophers, Ashvin and James spoke of the ruin of their lives, their unfulfilled needs, their unanswered prayers and ultimately they were seduced by the phantom call to death by suicide its science, its poetry, its violence, its art.

All you could do was hope for silence, for still air.

Life was complicated, I thought. Not just the living but dealing with the realities and the instinct for order that other people have, that I didn't always grasp.

He didn't speak much but the little he said kept me busy.

Strange that, the way happiness only works in retrospect.