What do you want? - some enemy voice kept asking, and he walked faster, trying to escape it. It seemed to him that his brain was a maze where a blind alley opened at every turn, leading into a fog that hid an abyss. It seemed to him that he was running, while the small island of safety was shrinking and nothing but those alleys would soon be left. It was like a remnant of clarity in the street around him, with the haze rolling in to fill all exits. Why did it have to shrink? - he thought in panic. This was the way he had lived all his life - keeping his eyes stubbornly, safety on the immediate pavement before him, craftily avoiding the sight of his road, of corners, of distances, of pinnacles. He had never intended going anywhere, he had wanted to be free of progression, free of the yoke of a straight line, he had never wanted his years to add up to any sum - what had summed them up? - why had he reached some unchosen destination where on could no longer stand still or retreat? "Look where you're going, brother!" snarled some voice, while an elbow pushed him back - and he realized that he had collided with some large, ill-smelling figure and that he had been running.

He slowed his steps and admitted into hid mind a recognition of the streets he had chosen in his random escape. He had not wanted to know that he was going home to his wife. That, too, was a fogbound alley, but there was no other left to him.

He knew - the moment he saw Cherryl's silent, poised figure as she rose at his entrance into her room - that this was more dangerous than he had allowed himself to know and that he would not find what he wanted. Bu danger, to him, was a signal to shut off his sight, suspend his judgment and pursue an unaltered course, on the unstated premis that the danger would remain unreal buy the sovereign power of his wish not to see it - like a foghorn within him, blowing, not to sound of warning, but to summon the fog.

- Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

Poster: Mr.M