The Dead

James Joyce (photo: Man Ray)

As life proceeds along its merry course, with the reminder of finitude manifesting every morning as the sun rises, you may find yourself retrenching, digging your heels in more adamantly. If only you can get away with it for one more month, week or day. You're playing   three card monte with yourself, ultimately, as the deck is going to be stacked against you, when Time is the dealer. Still, you persist since it's all you know how to do. Eyes blinded by cataracts, you proceed into the lake effect snow. "The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, on the Bog of Allen and, further westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves." --The Dead