Dear Agony Aunt I am writing to you because I have nobody else to turn to and I need to know about the whole question of forever which is a topic you don’t think about much or at least I never did until my boyfriend announced he was going to get me a diamond ring and I should say I was surprised at this because I have never been interested in jewelry but he insisted and said that diamonds are forever and this would symbolize his love which is and I quote eternal but a diamond is a lump of dinosaur poop or something for ages before it becomes a diamond so I don’t see how a thing that had a beginning could be eternal since eternity goes on forever in both directions right like an arrow pointing into the past and future and he said never mind because a ring also goes forever around and around like a snake swallowing its own tail which let me tell you dear Agony Aunt is not the most romantic metaphor anybody’s boyfriend ever thought of but just supposing a ring really is an eternal shape and the snake just swallows around and around well if the snake started swallowing infinitely far back then I cannot see how he could ever get this far to end up wherever he is in mid-swallow right now since he would have to do an infinite amount of swallowing to get here and if all this snake-swallowing is supposed to symbolize love then the next puzzling part is after my boyfriend and I are dead I cannot figure where his love will go or whether it ends up saved somewhere safe where even the heat death of the universe cannot get it and at this point it is surely clear to you that my head is completely muddled and you are wondering what in the world my question is and truth be told I have not been able to formulate a proper question here but I am at loose ends and that is why dear Agony Aunt I am writing to you because I have nobody else to turn to and

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It’s honestly no surprise you haven’t heard of Dale Stromberg. He fails to leave much impression in his day jobs as an editor and translator, and nobody where he lives near Kuala Lumpur takes any note of him. We’re not even sure he’s really here.