Iām about to tell you a story, and I need to warn you in the strongest terms to make no emotional investment in it whatsoever. It has a dreadful ending and I am only telling it in order to illustrate some lessons I learned from telling it.
Please, I stress, invest nothing in this story, do not fall in love with its hero. It will seem charming but it will rip you off; it is a hell spawn of a story
I first told it to a Wintec graduation ceremony one pleasant morning in Hamilton. I stood at the lectern dressed in the regalia of a Doctor of Forestry Studies, because I had forgotten to let them know which one I needed, and looked out at the graduates in their gowns and the proud parents, and smiled. They smiled back.
