" Deary me, boys, why? Why would someone with so much going for him have... have... ended it all in the way he appears to have done?

'Oh father, you see, it could be for any number of reasons ,' Andy said, serious and fluent, as if he was an expert on the subject. 'Personally I think it's a miracle that any of us survives.'

What do you mean? said the Priest.

'I mean' continued Andy, 'there's this one moment as you're growing up when the world suddenly feels more or less pointless- when the terribleness of reality lands on you, like something falling from the sky.'

'Something falling? Like what? asked Father Frank, trying his best.

'Something big, like a piano, say, or a fridge. And when that happens, there's no going back to the time when it hadn't landed on you.'

‘But what about the pleasures and the joy and the purpose, like sport, music, girls and the like?’ Father Frank was nearly pleading now.

‘Fiction,’ sighed Andy. ‘Mirages in the desert of life, to make people feel like it might be worth it.’

‘Oh,’ said Father Frank. ‘Oh I see, and do all you youngsters get this feeling?’

‘Yes, I think so,’ said Andy, not even asking anyone else for their opinion, but most of us learn to live with it.’

‘Well that’s a relief, I suppose. "

― Sarah Moore Fitzgerald