In time, I even started to think about eternal glory. The kind of success where everyone knows your name, a success that becomes legend and never fades. It was getting to the point where nothing less would save my life. For someone like me to course-correct and get things right, I probably needed someone to completely and utterly call me out for my delusion. I needed to be beaten down to absolutely nothing when I had no escape and no means to defend myself. In that sense, selling my life span was probably the right choice. Because that was where I learned that not only had I wasted my past, but my future was also destined to be the same. Upon closer examination, the woman in the suit was quite young. In terms of her physical appearance, she was probably somewhere between eighteen and twenty-four years of age. She told me the examination period would last about three hours. She was already typing at the computer next to her. I figured there must be •‘‡‹†‘ˆ–‹”‡•‘‡’ƒ’‡”™‘”‹˜‘Ž˜‡†ǡ„—–•Š‡•ƒ‹††‹†ǯ–‡˜‡‡‡† to give her my name. And in just three hours, she would know the value of the supposedly priceless life I had left to live. They would decide the —„‡”ǡ‘ˆ…‘—”•‡ǡ•‘‹–™ƒ•ǯ–•‘‡ˆ‹š‡†˜ƒŽ—‡Ǥ—–‹–was a standard. I left the building and wandered around aimlessly. The sky was getting a bit darker. My legs were exhausted. I was hungry. I wanted to find a ”‡•–ƒ—”ƒ–‘ˆ•‘‡‹†™Š‡”‡…‘—Ž†•‹–†‘™ƒ†”‡•–ǡ„—–†‹†ǯ–Šƒ˜‡ enough money to do that. Luckily, I found a Seven Stars cigarette and a hundred-yen lighter on a bench in the shopping district. I looked around the area „—– †‹†ǯ– •‡‡ ƒ likely owner. I sat down on the bench and discreetly slipped them into my pocket, then found a side street next to some discarded materials and lit the cigarette. It had been so long since the last time I smoked that my throat felt sore. I stepped on the cigarette and headed for the station. I was getting thirsty again. At the bench in the open area outside the train station, I sat and watched the pigeons. A middle-aged woman at the bench across the way was feeding them. Her outfit was a little too young for someone her age, and the way she threw the food indicated she was anxious. I found it hard to describe how this made me feel. On the other hand, I was intimately familiar with the self- hatred I felt when I realized that the sight of pigeons eating bread was