Earlier today I was revisited by the old dream of reading my Residua from the beginning. All of it. Piece by piece. But the best I could do in the event was to select a random year, select a random piece written that year, and start reading. I was riveted for a while, for much that I read struck me as someone else’s life, but my enthusiasm did not last very long. I read a dozen pieces at most. And the old dream mercifully receded for a while.

It will haunt me the rest of my life, though. I will not be able to shake it away. Which means that I will have to plan my grand reading very carefully so as to put it to rest at last. I will have to select a time and a place for the task. And then stick with it for days, weeks, months. Actually, it would not be too hard to calculate the length of time required for the reading itself, but it would be rather hard to come up with the amount of time I would chose to dedicate to writing addenda as I read along.

But it has just crossed my mind that the grand reading may keep haunting me even if I succeed with it any time soon. It will return again and again no matter how often I actually get through with it. Every five to ten years, say. And that will depend on the number of addenda I write in the meanwhile, as well. To the best of my reckoning, their number will only grow as years go by. It will grow by leaps and bounds, too. To wit, my grand readings are bound to haunt me till the bitter end.