I'd learned a valuable lesson: people almost never look up. Who knows why? Maybe they're looking at the soil for a preview of coming attractions. And… - Steve Toltz

After this incident I got into the bad habit of treating her with courtesy and respect. Courtesy and respect are advisable when addressing a judge right before he sentences you, but in a relationship they signify discomfort.

It's like Dad said: moments of cosmic consciousness could simply be a natural reaction to a sudden unconscious awareness of our own mortality. For all we know, the feeling of unity might be the greatest proof of separateness there is. Who knows? Just because they feel like genuine apprehensions of Truth doesn't mean they are. I mean, if you mistrust one sense, you must mistrust them all. There's no reason the sixth sense might not be as misleading as smell or sight. That's the lesson I've learned from my father, the headline news from the corner that he thought himself into: direct intuitions as as untrustworthy as they are potent.

I took a step closer to the edge. High in the trees I could hear the sounds of birds. They weren't chirping, they were just moving around making everything rustle. Down near the earth brown beetles were rummaging in the dirt, not thinking about death. It didn't seem to me I'd be missing out on much. Existence is humiliating anyway. If Someone was watching us build, decay, create, degenerate, believe, and wither as we do, he'd never stop laughing. So why not? What do I know about suicide? Only that it is a melodramatic act, as well as an admission that the heat is too hot so I'm getting out of this crazy kitchen. And why shouldn't a fourteen-year-old commit suicide? Sixteen-year-olds do it all the time. Maybe I'm just ahead of my time. Why shouldn't I end it all?