Fictional Nonfiction: Excerpts From a Nonexistent Work

"For what is life but a farce filled with tragedy and pain? We are born in pain, we live our lives in pain, and we die in pain. When pain is not physical, it is emotional or spiritual. Usually it is all of these. Pain is the only thing that remains constant in life, and we live the vast majority of our lives in a pitiful attempt to escape this one constant. In fact, eliminating the pain from our lives would (if it could be done) eliminate one of the things that make us human, a large part of our shared experiences as we play our parts in this tragedy we call life."

And, later...

"People say pain is not real because it is only in the mind; I say what is in the mind is far more real than anything we think is outside it."

-excerpts from "A Meditation on Pain", by Anthony Medssen