Snippet Of The Week

Early in the week, while dropping my daughter off at school, a mother of one of the other children asked me:

“Is the World Cup nearly finished now?”

She said it quite casually, but there was a hint of something more.

I answered “Finished? Some of the teams haven’t even played their first game yet!”

There was a slight pause, then, in equal parts resignation and desperation:

“How much longer will it go on for?”

I shrugged. “I’m not sure, maybe three weeks.”

Hope dying in the eyes, like the embers of a once blazing fire.