The Beginner's Guide to Living Read Online Free

Mortality , but chocolate seems to be the main theme here.
    The sun through the windows warms my feet through my shoes. Above the books on grief are some on philosophy—by names like Plato, Bertrand Russell, Marcus Aurelius, the same book as Mom’s. Next to it, there’s one called On the Shortness of Life . I pull it out and flick through it till I find this: It is better to conquer our grief than deceive it … But the grief that has been conquered by reason is calmed forever.
    This is better—I prefer the sound of conquering to squeezing the havoc in my head into a neat little box. I sit on the carpet and pull out my notebook, with its spiral binding and black cover, about the same size as most of these philosophy books. On the first page, Will Ellis is written in big letters like a title.
    I turn to where I wrote my questions and copy the sentences opposite them, the ones about grief, and with each word I feel a part of me loosen, smoothing the jaggedness of my thoughts. The cover of On the Shortness of Life is white, the lettering all embossed, good to run your finger over, and according to the blurb on the back it’s by a philosopher called Seneca. He’s talking to a friend of his, Paulinus, explaining to him about life: It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it.
    Waste. This afternoon I was thinking of having another listen to that CD Taryn gave me, to get past the music and into the words. Maybe go around and see Seb. Is that waste ? And how do you deceive grief?
    I riffle through the book to see what else Seneca has to say—the problem is he keeps getting off the track, talking about gladiatorial contests and someone called Scipio. An old guy reading a newspaper over by the window tilts forward and farts, turns the page, doesn’t even flinch. Man, the bravado of the old. Here it is: you deceive grief by distracting yourself, says Seneca, by turning your back on the big questions. A man after my own heart. What you need instead is philosophy and reason.
    Philosophy and reason.
    And I know as I read this that he’s talking about more than one book from your local library, even if it is his. I’m going to need shelves of them, a whole world of ideas to arm myself against ignorance, the kind that lets in pain. That’s if you believe a guy who’s been dead for two thousand years. For only philosophy … can divert from its anguish a heart whose grief springs from love.
    Behind me a woman calls out to her daughter who’s tipping books off the shelves, watching them flap like paper birds. She must be about two, the kid, and she’s ecstatic, as if she’s finally discovered why everyone’s so enchanted by books. Her fingers are fat and unruly and there’s chocolate bracketing the corners of her mouth. She hauls out a hardcover book, Mastering Philosophy , and holds it up to me, grinning as she drops it on my leg with a thud. It falls open and halfway down the page it says: The study of ultimate reality.
    â€œRiana.” The woman grabs hold of the kid’s shoulders, and spins her around.
    â€œIt’s okay, I’ll pick them up,” I say, rubbing my knee.
    â€œThanks.” The woman whips her daughter up into her arms and the kid kisses her on the nose, cheeks, eyes and makes her mother laugh. Little but smart. I guess I was smart like that once, when things were simple and life was all about chocolate and keeping out of trouble.
    Maybe it still is.
    *   *   *
    Dad’s working in his study, Adam’s out for lunch, so I grab a Mars bar and leave a note: Back for dinner, Will .
    *   *   *
    At the train station, there’s a guy harvesting dropped tickets, hoping to find one he can use. Hate that—he looks about my dad’s age; he should have the cash. He’s still searching as the train pulls in, and out.
    There are a couple of kids I know with