Artistic liberty drawing by Beetle.

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When I look at that boy, with his head in the clouds and his eyes full of stars, is it trite to say I feel reminded of myself when I was his age?

How brief and distant those days seem. I wonder if he is even capable of understanding the bitterness of failure I felt, the hollowness of time's passing, the corrosiveness of an unremitting obsession.

I want to let him dream his own dreams, just for a while. Let him paint whatever purposes he sees fit to entertain behind those goggles of his.

The day is fast approaching when he's going to have to learn what my laboratory was really built to do.