“If, as has been postulated before, heroism happens when courage meets circumstance, what if the circumstances are mundane?”

“These people were smiling because they were where they wanted to be. They understood that life is too short for what-ifs and complications. Life, they found, can be as simple as reading the wind.”

“I asked my Greek chorus about this sort of hero: the Underappreciated Personification of Resolve.”

“Perhaps elements like tenacity and humility combine to form a heroic compound.”

“As we age we begin to grasp at youthful bliss like a life raft in a sea of harsh reality.”

“It could be that the hope was in the adventure, the honor in the pursuit, the pride in the doing.”

“Meanwhile it's got stormy, the tattered fog even thicker, chasing across my path. Three people are sitting in a glassy tourist cafe between clouds and clouds, protected by glass from all sides. Since I don't see any waiters, it crosses my mind that corpses have been sitting there for weeks, statuesque. All this time the cafe has been unattended, for sure. Just how long have they been sitting here, petrified like this?”