Ethan Craig’s Reviews > The City and Its Uncertain Walls > Status Update

‘Whatever the motivation, it was a fait accompli. Half unconsciously, almost reflexively, I’d invited her out to dinner, and she’d accepted. Many things in life are like that, though, if you think about it—moving ahead on their own without regard for the intention intentions or plans of the person involved. To take it a step further, I’d have to say at this point I was bereft of any intentions or plans.’

‘Nowadays, though, anyone can check what day of the week they were born on in less than ten seconds. The boy could come up with the answer in one second. This wasn’t a shootout in a Western, but how much practical difference was there between ten seconds and one? I felt a little sad for the boy. The world was, day by day, becoming a more convenient, and unromantic, place.

‘Age doesn’t matter, or whether you go through trials, or sexual experiences. The only thing that matters is whether that is, for you, a hundred percent. The feelings of love you had for the girl when you were sixteen and seventeen were truly pure. One hundred percent genuine. You came across your partner at an early stage in life. You had to meet her, maybe I should say.’

‘There was something hard to fathom about me —— I could see that. Because I myself didn’t have a good grasp of who I was. I thought about this as I gazed at the mountain scenery passing by. Maybe the person most puzzled about me was . . . me.

I cooked meals for myself, worked out at the gym, kept everything nice and neat around me, and when I had free time, I read. Regularity is key to a single life, even if at times it was hard to draw a line between regularity and tedium.

To others, my life might have looked free and easy and it’s true that I was thankful for the freedom and quiet. This was the kind of lifestyle a person like me could accept…

“What I’d like to say to you is this — when you have a plate on top of your head it’s best not to look up at the sky.”