A safe place.

Then there’s the very particular hell of losing something. For example, a very important piece of paper, which you can neither find nor stop looking for. Immediately one’s apartment, which seemed such a modest space, is revealed to be a vast and craggy wilderness, an Afghanistan, with countless hiding places. Where could it be? In this file, on this shelf, in this drawer—or behind it, or under it, or near. It can’t be nowhere, dammit. Things don’t just disappear.

Funny, how you never realized your life was completely out of control until now.

Consider the time you are wasting. This was your special hour to be creative. This was your own special time, which gets you through the day and its hassles. You were almost out the door and right on schedule. Ready to reconnect with the children.

The children. Whatever happened to them?

Anyway, the chance is lost because you won’t rest until you find that very important (and unfortunately, quite small) thing which you have lost. Inside you a thin insistent voice is needling, “It can’t be lost. I’m sure it’s right here. Somewhere. I put it in a safe place.” That voice is inside you. Therefore, it is impossible to murder it without wide-ranging consequences. Still, you will try. But first—you must find what you are looking for.

In the meantime, you find all the unpaid bills, the unread books and unanswered letters. All your abandoned projects and pictures of all the people you promised, tearfully, to write, call, visit and find time for.

Hey, you aren’t using your life well, are you? Life is passing you by. All your time is wasted with pointless tasks. Like now.

And you can just see it. You can see it—that’s how perfectly you can picture it in your mind. You ought to be able to draw it right out of the air, you can see it so well. It ought to be right—here.

You look in the same place for the fifth time. Because it’s got to be here. But it’s not. And the blaze of relief—and the vicious stabbing pike of --no, this isn’t it. This only looks like it. The world is full of these near-miss doppelgangers, sent by God to punish you for your misspent life.

What a wreck you’ve made of it, considering all the wonderful chances you were given. People had such hopes for you. You were promising, once.

Now you only waste your time in countless bad habits and looking for this small, terribly important, thing which you have lost.

Except it isn’t lost. It can’t be. Things don’t just disappear.

It’s here. It’s got to be. You put it someplace safe.