At various times in his life, in a number of locations (geography appeared to play no critical role, as far as he could determine) and to varying degrees (some of which could be measured if so desired and others not, no matter how much he might have longed to do so) there had been — and, if experience is any indication, there would continue to be — moments, or more properly speaking, periods, that is to say, indefinite durations of time (some longer, some shorter, but all equally inevitable) during which — whether out of habit or by dint of some perverse design, it is impossible say — he would discern, or rather sense (it was after all more of a gut feeling than a cognitive act, more visceral response than conscious deliberation) that what he had undergone — and we are, regrettably, required to use the past perfect mode of expression here, since his was in essence a post facto existence that, in its description (if it is to be true to its subject matter) brooks no admittance of either the present or the present perfect, no matter how contemporaneous the former nor how perfect the latter might have been — what he had undergone was, in ways both transparent and vague (transparent in their immediate and irrefutable obviousness, and at the same time vague in their resolute and irreducible opacity) an experience that inevitably proved to be of lasting and profound, indelible and thorough, eternal and bottomless POSTPONED INSIGNIFICANCE — a fact, or rather a certitude, which weighed heavily on his soul and led him to at times regret that he had perhaps been born too late, or at other times to regret that he had perhaps been born too early, or at still other times to regret that he had perhaps been born at all, a state of affairs that was lamentably self-consuming and utterly indicative of the frustration that he endured throughout the execution of his one and only task, an undertaking of a lifetime.