Life was comfortable when she was around. Even in times of deepest despair and the darkest hours of his life, and truth be told there were many hours of deep despair in his life, the only comfort he ever had was that of her presence at his side. She never abandoned him. When things were not going well – when he lost sizeable amounts of money playing the stock market or when he lost his vocation, for instance - it was not unnatural to him to almost always attribute the cause for his misfortunes to Chimera. No, he never accused her of conspiring against him or anything as some others in his place may have done, but he merely felt that she could have changed his fortunes if she had so wished, but that she simply did nothing. But she never interfered with his thoughts or actions, and consequently the outcomes. Yet he could not help throwing a hurtful and accusatory look at her. She did not mind it though. And he knew she would not because his trust in her was so great.

There were happy moments in his life too. Though they were not as frequent as the unhappy ones, they were nevertheless there. There was the time when he got the promotion that he coveted so deeply. Naturally this was entirely due to his hard work and dedication. And then there was the other time when he made some money for a change on the stock market; any profit would have looked enormous to one accustomed to loosing large sums of money rather frequently. He attributed this success to his intimate knowledge of the stock market and keen sense of intuition that was natural to one so gifted. It would, however, be inaccurate to say that he never attributed any of this success to Chimera. He occasionally remembered her, and perhaps even more occasionally paid her a compliment. Granted, these compliments were hardly ever sincere, but they were nonetheless compliments. They were almost always after-thoughts and these admissions were more to feign modesty than anything else. Chimera did not mind this in the least and took this, like everything else, with complete equanimity.

Then one day the unthinkable happened. He found success. Some say success found him. How could he find anything when he was perfectly incapable of even finding the nose on his own face? Be that as it may, he had become enormously successful. He went from strength to strength, and the more successful he became, the less he thought of Chimera. She did not mind this in the least. Each new success pushed Chimera further out of his mind until he eventually forgot all about her. It became clear that he only needed her in times of distress. He found solace in her in moments of failure. It helped him deflect the blame and shun responsibilities for the consequences of his actions. This ensured that he had the courage and strength to pull himself up by his bootstraps, as the pithy maxim goes, brush the dust off from the seat of his pants, so to speak, and take another shot at success. Chimera had ensured that he was not so discouraged as to not have the will to heave himself up and take another shot at success. Failure is a downer requiring a certain pick-me-up to help overcome. Success, on the other hand, is an upper and hence an elixir in itself. It feeds on itself and needs no outside assistance. Hence he had no need for Chimera. Like all other unwanted things, he discarded Chimera without the slightest remorse or misgiving.

Then another unthinkable event occurred. Yes, his life was rather eventful. Success deserted him and failure befriended him. Or should we say failure thrust its odious companionship upon him? It should not have surprised him really. Failure is the other face of the same coin that has success on one side of it. As with any coin, the probability of which face shows up is exactly half. However, this probability value is only true over a large sample; in small samples, one may see more of one face than the other and be led into a false sense of complacency. That is precisely what happened to him. He could not believe it when success left him. He had not believed it possible. Success had caused him to forget Chimera and he had grown to assume complete responsibility for his success. Now that failure had visited with no less fervor than success had done earlier, and there was no Chimera to lean on, he was devastated. He was burdened with more weight than he was accustomed to, and it crushed him. He was disillusioned and he despaired in vain.  It deflated him and left him with hardly any strength at all. He was so dispirited that he had not the strength to pull himself up by his bootstraps. He was so disheartened and dejected that he had no success in pulling himself up so much so that the question of brushing the dust off the seat of his pants was moot.

He may not have thought of Chimera, but she was still there. She was looking at him dispassionately in his moment of failure as she had in his moments of success. She was as non-judgmental as always. He could have had her back if he wanted to. If he had only remembered what he had forgot. Then perhaps he could have pulled himself together and made another pass at success. Alas, he did not. And he dies a broken man. Chimera shed not a tear. Not one solitary tear. She just looked on in that indescribable serenity that is only hers.