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with a sob-story would receive help whether they could afford to pay or not and he was equally soft in chasing up the money that was owed to the business.

Emotionally, John Landen's life was also in turmoil. During the course of the past year his marriage had become to feel more like a battleground than a place where love should abound. The days of fun and laughter that he and his wife Mary had once shared together were now nothing more than memories that mocked him. He was for ever searching for a way to reach the wife he loved so dearly, but it felt like an impossible task. He did not blame her, knowing too well that he had to share an equal portion of blame for the problems they were having. If he was honest with himself he knew that his increasing tiredness and lack of wanting to be involved with the house and other personal issues were exacerbating their marital difficulties. Yet he could not seem to find the way to put right these issues in a way that would make Mary respond to him as she had in the past. Today however, it was not the marriage but the financial problems that were uppermost in his thoughts.

'Strange.' he thought, not for the first time, 'here am I, a fully qualified Accountant, supposed to be able to assist others in solving all their financial difficulties, yet totally unable to control my own. Most people would think that pretty ironic. The typical cobbler's children syndrome. Maybe I have become so adept at fooling others that I am no longer capable of seeing when I am fooling myself.' Landen reached into his jacket pocket and removed a wad of paper which he then laid flat on the blotting paper. Idly he cast an eye over the results of the cash flow which he had constructed during the sleepless early hours of that morning. It balanced perfectly and, more importantly for Landen, proved that his business was viable.

Unlike a rugby player though, he never seemed able to convert the theory that sat on the paper before him into fact. With a deep sigh, John Landen turned back to his desk, well aware that the depression which had been building over the past few minutes was now firmly in place. It had become a physical thing with him these days. As he became more morose, all of his muscles seemed to ache and pain was an almost constant companion. His head would start to throb and his eyes watered. His breathing also became laboured, though that particular affliction was not helped by the fact that he was a chain smoker. Each day he left enough ash in the office to fill a dozen urns. The knowledge of the harm which this addiction to cigarettes was causing did nothing to improve Landen's disposition. Quite the contrary, it actually served to deepen the depression still further. When there were other people around, or when he was attending to clients, Landen found that he could control his moods to a very large extent, mostly by sheer bluff, bull-shit and a self-depreciating sense of humour, a quality he possessed in abundance, but once alone, Landen found it almost impossible to pick himself up. He smiled to himself. A psychiatrist would probably deduce that it was because he did not want to. Was his life really going to end on this continuous downward spiral of pain, misery and failure he thought to himself?

Learn more about this author, Paul Lines.
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