Golden rainwater glowing. Broad leaves calculate the drops, with a sound like an endless handful of seeds poured onto a drum.

God alone knows the fullness of shame, some secret even to myself but for the sensation, arising like black bile on even the most sun-brightened and untroubled of days, that I have wronged a dear friend, disgraced my dignity, or damned my future joy by inaction, or ignorance. It is an invisible substance that contaminates pleasure and corrodes potential. Lie in bed and let your fate come to meet you, comes the whisper of inner weakness. Attempt nothing.