The end of a long and solitary day. Finding a half dozen turtle eggs, usually exhilirating, had been unable to lift his mood. Yet he had thought many thoughts throughout the day, and he was now pretty sure he had it right. He was now not so much mad as sad.

Two days ago he had found puppy on his way home from school. He knew the neighborhood well enough to know that it didn’t belong here; it was thoroughly lost. He took it home and asked his dad if he could keep it.

His dad said, “Put the dog down on the ground.” Which he did.

With one sudden stroke of his irrigating shovel his dad severed the head which rolled surprisingly far from the body.

“There’s your answer.”

Over the day sad about the puppy and mad at his dad had turned slowly into sad about the puppy and a great weight around his heart which we would know as the emerging awareness of the human condition.

 “Beyond a certain pitch of suffering, men are overcome by a kind of ghostly indifference.”