From THE SPIDER'S HOUSE
- Paul Bowles

The spring sun warmed the orchard. Soon it would drop behind the high canebrake that bordered the highway, for the time was mid-afternoon. Amar lay beneath an old fig tree, embedded in the long grass that was still damp with dew from the night before. He was comparing his own life with what he knew of the lives of his friends, and thinking that certainly he was the least enviable. He knew this was a sin: it is not allowed to man to make judgements of this sort, and he would never have given voice to the conclusion he had reached, even if it had taken the form of words in his mind.