What is there, in the mention of Time To Come, that is so…

““What is there, in the mention of Time To Come, that is so quick to wrench at the heart, to inflict a pain in the senses that is like the run of a sword, I wonder. Perhaps we feel our youngness taken from us without the soothe of sliding years, and the pains of age that come to stand unseen beside us and grow more solid as the minutes pass, are with us solid on the instant, and we sense them, but when we try to assess them, they are back again in their places down in Time To Come, ready to meet us coming. Or does the mention of it, I wonder, drive a wedge under that tight-shut door, just enough to let in a thin smell of the steamings we shall live through before those who know us can go about with long faces to say we are dead. Sad, sad is the thought that we are in for a hiding in every round, and no chance to hit back, no hope of a win, fighting blind against a champion of champions, who plays with you on the end of a poking left, and in the last round puts you down with a right cross to kill. There is something of sickness in the thought that you shall make up your mind to enjoy your hiding, and the consolation is only that you will never know the tasting of defeat. For while they are taking your clay from the ring, you are up and starting your fight somewhere else.””

— Richard Llewellyn