mariann’s Reviews > A Man Asleep > Status Update

near the lakeside, you'll have to be careful of the tall grass which is always dangerous at this time of year. There won't be a rowing boat either, naturally, there hardly ever is, but you can swim across.
Subsequently, there obviously never was a lake. You remember quite distinctly that there never has been a lake.

that thing, in the cracked mirror, is not your new face

You have never seriously agonised over the chicken and the egg. Metaphysical torments have not significantly ravaged your noble countenance. But nothing remains of that arrow-like trajectory, of that forward movement in which, for as long as you can remember, you have been led to recognise your life.

"You look up, you stop reading, but you had already stopped long ago. You put the open book down beside you on the bed. You reach out your hand, you stub out the cigarette which is smoking in the ashtray, you finish your bowl of Nescafé: it is barely lukewarm, too sweet, on the bitter side. You are soaked in sweat."