You were right. This narrator might very well kill you. So I humbly suggest that you just forget all this and go live your life.

Go live my life? I am living my life. I'd like to continue to live my life.

I know. Of course. I mean all of it. However long you have left. You know, I mean, Howard,you could use it to have an adventure. You know, invent something, or just finish reading Crime and Punishment. Hell, Harold, you could just eat nothing but pancakes if you wanted.

What's wrong with you? Hey. I don't wanna eat nothing but pancakes. I wanna live. Who in their right mind in a choice between pancakes and living chooses pancakes?

Harold, if you'd pause to think. I believe you'd realize that that answer's inextricably contingent upon the type of life being led and, of course,the quality of the pancakes.

You don't understand. What I'm saying.

Yes, I do.

But you have to understand that this isn't a philosophy or a literary theory or a story to me. It's my life.

Absolutely. So just go make it the one you've always wanted.