““Always the fear of consequences. Always this terrible inertia. What he was about to do to his father was so huge, so colossal, that the consequences were inconceivable - he couldn't imagine a moment occurring after that act. Only blankness. Nothingness. Something like the end of the world. And facing the end of the world, or even just the end of the year, had always given Josh a strangely detached feeling.””
