Solitude like surface tension bears me up lightly walking past quiet houses in the sunlit chill. The difficulty of concentrating follows me like a beaten dog, insinuating itself in any room I enter, crawling under my chair and whining softly, perpetually. When I can read and write life is almost normal; when I draw something I am that thing; when cooking and listening to music I am the joyous center of all forgetfulness. Then there are moments like now, very nearly silent. The clock ticks. My wife turns a page. A magazine slides to the floor from my dreaming lap.