Living

You see my problem. I withdrew this cash and come down here to .. enjoy myself or live a little, as you put it. But I realise... I don't know how. 

(...)

When I was your age, from when I was this high, what I wanted was to be a gentleman.

Nothing grand. Just a rank and file sort of gentleman. I used to see them in the mornings, all lined up at the railway station, whenever I went there with my mother in their suits and hats, waiting on the platform to go into London. A gentleman like that. That’s what… that’s what I longed to be one day. How did it happen? I fancy it just crept up on me. Just one day proceeding the next. A small wonder I didn’t notice what I was becoming. And then I looked at you. And I remembered what it was like to be alive like that. 

I wonder if you ever stop on the way home and watch the children playing. In the street, or in the yard. And when the time comes and their mothers call them in, they’re often reluctant. They get a little contrary. But that’s as it should be. Far better that than to be the child you occasionally see, sitting himself in the corner, not taking part, not happy, not unhappy. Merely waiting for his mother to call him in. I’ve become afraid that I might end up like that child. And I so very much do not wish to do so. When the time comes, when my Maker calls me…