“Once, when he was an undergrad, one of his professors had told him that people’s lives could be divided into Histories, Tragedies and Comedies. Most lives were Histories, and sometimes Tragedies, but it was the truly fortunate who found themselves in Comedies.

But how to recognise which one I’m in? he sometimes wondered. And if he did, how would it help?"

(c) Country People by Daniel Mason