The Question

Erm, well – I begin, shifting nervously in my chair – 
if it’s true there is no heaven and no hell,  
no eternity or long hereafter,  
no divine plan or offstage direction from an invisible hand, 
then how do we make sense of it all, 
how do we make our way through this life,
this glorious, ridiculous, ramshackle world of ours, 
with its wars and brutality, conflicts and petty arguments, 
the ten thousand tiny acts of kindness  
which happen unnoticed before breakfast, 
and all that love and pain, happiness and loneliness 
that comes to us unannounced, by turns,  
as if we ourselves were pitched daily  
onto the waves of one of its vast, mysterious oceans, 
not knowing whether today is the day we drown 
or we find ourselves washed up  
on some strange but friendly shore? 

Mmm – you say, after a lengthy silence – 
what I meant was … do you have any questions  
about the job?