Imagine this:
Hayfever at the beginning of January, wishing for real winter.
Suddenly, real winter. It's cold enough to notice the heating at home isn't working properly. It gets uncomfortably cold and the first tries of repair don't work. The only warm place is the office, but work is unpleasant enough by itself to feel uncomfortable there as well.
Imagine a cold that has no chance to be cured. Imagine putting the butter in the fridge so it won't get too hard to use. Imagine feeling worse every day. If you had a progress bar somewhere on you, it would say "Self-destruction in progress...".
Then take this sentence and write:
"even before the child's forefinger had time to unfold"
What do you think would happen?
If you want, you can read
The Perks of Being a Wallflower during that time as well, just for the feel of it.
Could you do what I did in Fourteen? Would you?
And can you ever really stop caring?
On a totally unrelated note, I only read the book again because Lili said there would be a movie. When I told others about it, I was asked what the book was all about and I couldn't remember. That Hugo stopped working the same weekend was my chance to read it again.
