103
" Having come so close to losing everything, I am freed now of all fear, hesitation, and timidity, and, once revived, intent to devoutly wander the earth, imbibing, smelling, sampling, loving whomever I please; touching, tasting, standing very still among the beautiful things of this world, such as, for example: a sleeping dog dream-kicking in a tree-shade triangle; a sugar pyramid upon a blackwood tabletop being rearranged grain-by-grain by an indiscernible draft; a cloud passing ship-like above a rounded green hill, atop which a line of colored shirts energetically dance in the wind, while down below in town, a purple-blue day unfolds (the muse of spring incarnate), each most-grasses, flower pierced yard gone positively mad with—" Saunders, 27 "
― George Saunders , Lincoln in the Bardo
106
" Then, with no change in size at all (i.e., while still child-sized), he displayed his various future-forms (forms he had, alas, never succeeded in attaining):
Nervous young man in wedding-coat;
Naked husband, wet-groined with recent pleasure;
Young father leaping out of bed to light a candle at a child’s cry;
Grieving widower, hair gone white;
Bent ancient fellow with an ear trumpet, athwart a stump, swatting at flies
All the while seeming quite innocent of these alterations "
― George Saunders , Lincoln in the Bardo
107
" Having come so close to losing everything, I am freed now of all fear, hesitation, and timidity, and, once revived, intend to devoutly wander the earth, imbibing, smelling, sampling, loving whomever I please; touching, tasting, standing very still among the beautiful things of this world, such as, for example: a sleeping dog dream-kicking in a tree-shade triangle; a sugar pyramid upon a blackwood tabletop being rearranged grain-by-grain by an indiscernible draft; a cloud passing ship-like above a rounded green hill, atop which a line of colored shirts energetically dance in the wind, while down below in town, a purple-blue day unfolds (the muse of spring incarnate), each most-grasses, flower pierced yard gone positively mad with—" Saunders, 27 "
― George Saunders , Lincoln in the Bardo
108
" Having come so close to losing everything, I am freed now of all fear, hesitation, and timidity, and, once revived, intend to devoutly wander the earth, imbibing, smelling, sampling, loving whomever I please; touching, tasting, standing very still among the beautiful things of this world, such as, for example: a sleeping dog dream-kicking in a tree-shade triangle; a sugar pyramid upon a blackwood tabletop being rearranged grain-by-grain by an indiscernible draft; a cloud passing ship-like above a rounded green hill, atop which a line of colored shirts energetically dance in the wind, while down below in town, a purple-blue day unfolds (the muse of spring incarnate), each moist-grasses, flower pierced yard gone positively mad with—" Saunders, 27 "
― George Saunders , Lincoln in the Bardo
119
" all of it, all of that bounty, was for everyone, for everyone to use, seemingly put here to teach a man to be free, to teach that a man could be free, that any man, any free white man, could come from as low a place as he had (a rutting sound coming from the Cane cabin, he had looked in through the open door and seen two pairs of still-socked feet and a baby toddling past, steadying herself by grasping one of the rutters’ feet), and even a young fellow who had seen that, and lived among those, might rise, here, as high as he was inclined to go. "
― George Saunders , Lincoln in the Bardo