“Old dark sleepy pool...Quick unexpected frog Goes plop! Watersplash!”

“There is a kidney-shaped fish pool outside the picture window. I cleaned it out and put in some large goldfish I bought in a bait store. The cats are always trying to catch the fish, with no success. One time the white cat leapt for a frog across the pool. The frog dove in and the cat fell in. He is trouble-prone.”

“Old pond — frogs jumped in — sound of water”

“I respond, thoughts dropping away, like pebbles plopping one by one in water, sinking down, down into dark oblivion.”

“Life goes quickly, doesn't it?”

“Intense, unexpected suffering passes more quickly than suffering that is apparently bearable; the latter goes on for years and, without our noticing, eats away at our souls, until, one day, we are no longer able to free ourselves from the bitterness and it stays with us for the rest of our lives.”