Abbie

Sometimes, fate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing direction. You change direction, but the sandstorm chases you. You turn again, but the storm adjusts. Over and over you play this out, like some ominous dance with death just before dawn. Why? Because this storm isn't something that blew in from far away. This storm is you. Something inside you. So all you can do is give in to it, step right inside the sorm, closing your eyes and plugging up your ear so the sand doesn't get in, and walk through it step by step. There's no sun there, no moon, no direction, no sense of time. Just fine white sand swirling into the sky like pulverised bones."From now on - no matter what - you've got to be the world toughest 15-year-old. That's the only way you're going to survive."And you really will have to make it through that violent, metaphysical, symbolic storm. No matter how metaphysical or symbolic it might be, make no mistake about it: it will cut through flesh like a thousand razor blades. People will bleed there. You will bleed too. Hot, red blood. You'll catch that blood in your hands, your own blood and the blood of others.And once the storm is over you won't remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won't even be sure, in fact, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won't be the same person who walked in. That's what this storm is all about....I'll run away from home, journey to a far-off town, and live in a corner of a small library.It sounds like a fairy tale. But it's no fairy tale, believe me. No matter what sort of spin you put on it.--- Kafka on the Shore, Haruki Murakami