64
" 5-4-10 Tuesday 8:00 A.M.
Made a large batch of chili and spaghetti to freeze yesterday. And some walnut fudge! Relieved the electricity is still on.
It’s another beautiful sunny day with fluffy white clouds drifting by. The last cloud bank looked like a dog with nursing pups.
I open the window and let in some fresh air filled with the scent of apple and plum blossoms and flowering lilacs. Feels like it’s close to 70 degrees. There’s a boy on a skate board being pulled along by his St. Bernard, who keeps turning around to see if his young friend is still on board.
I’m thinking of a scene still vividly displayed in my memory. I was nine years old. I cut through the country club on my way home from school and followed a narrow stream, sucking on a jawbreaker from Ben Franklins, and I had some cherry and strawberry pixie straws, and banana and vanilla taffy inside my coat pocket. The temperature was in the fifties so it almost felt like spring. There were still large patches of snow on the fairways in the shadows and the ground was soggy from the melt off.
Enthralled with the multi-layers of ice, thin sheets and tiny ice sickles gleaming under the afternoon sun, dripping, streaming into the pristine water below, running over the ribbons of green grass, forming miniature rapids and gently flowing rippling waves and all the reflections of a crystal cathedral, merging with the hidden world of a child. Seemingly endless natural sculptures.
Then the hollow percussion sounds of the ice thudding, crackling under my feet, breaking off little ice flows carried away into a snow-covered cavern and out the other side of the tunnel. And I followed it all the way to bridge under Maple Road as if I didn't have a care in the world. "
― Andrew Neff , The Mind Game Company: The Players
72
" What’s the kindest thing you almost did? Is your fear of insomnia stronger than your fear of what awoke you? Are bonsai cruel? Do you love what you love, or just the feeling? Your earliest memories: do you look through your young eyes, or look at your young self? Which feels worse: to know that there are people who do more with less talent, or that there are people with more talent? Do you walk on moving walkways? Should it make any difference that you knew it was wrong �as you were doing it? Would you trade actual intelligence for the perception of being smarter? Why does it bother you when someone at the next table is having a conversation on a cell phone? How many years of your life would you trade for the greatest month of your life? What would you tell your father, if it were possible? Which is changing faster, your body, or your mind? Is it cruel to tell an old person his prognosis? Are you in any way angry at your phone? When you pass �a storefront, do you look at what’s inside, look at your reflection, or neither? Is there anything you would die for if no one could ever know you died for it? If you could be assured that money wouldn’t make �you any small bit happier, would you still want more money? What has �been irrevocably spoiled for you? If your deepest secret became public, �would you be forgiven? Is your best friend your kindest friend? Is it in any way cruel to give a dog a name? Is there anything you feel a need to confess? You know it’s a “murder of crows” and a “wake of buzzards” but it’s a what of ravens, again? What is it about death that you’re �afraid of? How does it make you feel to know that it’s an “unkindness �of ravens”? "
― Jonathan Safran Foer
78
" When you got captured, I didn't know..." He trailed off, had to chug whiskey before he could continue. " If it'd be like..." " What?" " Like it was with Clotile." " Oh, Jackson, no. I was okay. I'm unharmed." " Didn't know if I'd get there too late," he said with a shudder. Then he crossed over to me, until we stood toe-to-toe. " Evie, if you ever get taken from me again, you better know that I'll be coming for you." He cupped my face with a bloodstained hand. " So you stay the hell alive! You don't do like Clotile, you doan take that way out. You and me can get through anything, just give me a chance." --his voice broke lower " just give me a chance to get to you." He buried his face in my hair, inhaling deeply. " There is nothing that can happen to you that we can't get past." ..." When you say we...?" He pulled back, gazing down at me, his eyes blazing. " I'm goan to lay it all out there for you. Laugh in my face--I don't care. But I'm goan to get this off my chest." " I won't laugh. I'm listening." " Evie, I've wanted you from the first time I saw you. Even when I hated you, I wanted you." He raked his fingers through his hair. " I got it bad, me." My heart felt like it'd stopped--so that I could hear him better." For as long as you've been looking down your nose at me, I've been craving you, an envie like I've never known." " I don't look down at you! I'm too busy looking up to you." ..." The corners of his lips curled for an instant before he grew serious again. " You asked me if I had that phone with your pictures, if I'd looked at it. Damn right, I did! I saw you playing with a dog at the beach, and doing a crazy-ass flip off a high dive, and making faces for the camera. I learned about you" - his voice grew hoarse -" and I wanted more of you. To see you every day." With a humourless laugh, he admitted, " After the Flash, I was constantly sourcing ways to charge a goddamned phone--that would never make a call." I murmured, " I didn't know...I couldn't be sure." " It's you for me, peekon. "
