Not that he’d been on one for a while. His love life seemed as empty as he purported to find the machinations of Aristotle’s Metaphysics.

He smiled to himself at the thought and congratulated himself on a metaphor. He stopped then, and chided himself. Was this what he had been reduced to? Congratulating himself for his own thoughts? Patting himself on the back?

He was younger once, and he had dreams; he had a future. He had hope.

I still have hope, he reminded himself. And I still have dreams. It’s just that my future … well …

Futures were funny things, he reflected. As you stood far away, they looked like a murky fog and could contain anything. As you got closer and closer, they became real, solid, and immutable.