Prediction is not only possible, it’s paramount. Milestones make us human. Upright, time-bound. Or is that poetry, or is that music. Or is that sports, or breweries. Or pharmaceuticals, or …

His wooden rosary, a broken abacus, hangs on the bedroom wall, draped around a framed, colourized picture of a little boy kneeling bedside. Palms pressed, fingers steepled, whispering the saints’ …