quoth the madman

Almost everyone has some person from the past who continues to stick in their soul like a deep splinter. You know who I’m talking about. The most obvious example is the lover who dumped you years ago for reasons you still don’t understand, or accept. The bully who tormented you in school, the teacher who inspired you and opened doors in your brain or soul that you didn’t know existed. A neighbor who suffered and died with dignity but remained kind and thoughtful right up until the end. Ironically in some cases if you were to go to these people now and tell them what a lasting effect they have had on you, they would be genuinely surprised or perplexed. Because in truth you were only a very small cloud on their horizon, a blip on their screen, or someone they forgot very quickly. But boy, you sure remember *them*.

Jonathan Carroll