Well I tried, yes I tried. I stayed away. I allowed speculation to fill the silence but, finally, the soul insists. Contrary to all the evidence, and the attempts on its life, it will not die. But I am not here to narrate a return of the soul. While that is an ending to nearly every story, frankly, who needs another fiction? No, we may yearn for everything to end but there is no ending, not here. After a lifetime attending to the souls' of my clients, my own soul is as elusive as ever. Elusive...from the Latin ' elus '. Yes, correct. I have nothing to teach you and, I fear, nothing very much to amuse you with, either. I hear Gareth, the scrape of his chair. Has nothing changed? Oh, plenty. Thom is not speaking to me. More of that later. But listen, the scrape of Gareth's chair, the silence. Then the screeching, like a flock of gulls, of seven other chairs. Yes, Gareth is doing group work. What orchestral fantasy has the man embarked upon? It does appear, does it not, that at last he is more interested in his own ruin, than that of mine.