I find myself having these conversations where I go...“You know, the guy, in that place. The guy in the place with the thing, you know.” And it becomes this game of charades. And then finally, we realize that I mean the Pope.

A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory

And be thinking, remembering. Trying to. All difficult dark stuff, stories stuffed away, like old socks into old pillowcases. Not quite knowing the weight of truth in them much more. And things that I have let be a long time in the interests of happiness, or at least that daily contentment that I was once I do believe mistress of

It won't taint (his memory). Leave it alone.

My mind, I know, I can prove, hovers on hummingbird wings. It hovers and it churns. And when it's operating at full thrust, the churning does not stop. The machines do not rest, the systems rarely cool. And while I can forget anything of any importance--this is why people tell me secrets--my mind has an uncanny knack for organization when it comes to pain. Nothing tormenting is ever lost, never even diminished in color or intensity or quality of sound.

For the first time in your conscious memory; for the first time in fact, since your were a baby; a single tear, full and warm, rolled down your right cheek and you fell into a very deep and entirely dreamless slumber.