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“Don’t trust the light, Prince Jalan. The stars are pretty but the space between them is infinite and black with promise.”
Animals are generally good judges of character—they don’t like me—except
except for horses which, for reasons I’ve never understood, give me their all. Perhaps it’s our shared interest in running away that forms the bond.
Fear is a valuable commodity, it’s common sense compressed into its purest form.
birds sang . . . but each sound held a discordant tone, as if the skylarks were just a note away from screaming.
I’d seen too much on my journey. Learned too much. I wanted my ignorance back. And my bliss.
“The world is better shaped by freedom. Even if it means giving foolish men their head.
“It doesn’t matter if you win—it only matters that you make a stand,”
There’s a simple joy in casting a rock into still waters and watching the ripples spread. It’s the thrill of destruction combined with the surety that all will be well again—everything as it was.
I step in through the narrow gap, nose wrinkling at the faint stink. There’s always an air of bedpans here though the breeze thins it. Over the years I came to understand it as more honest than the perfumes of court. Lies smell sweet—the truth often stinks.
In the midst of such institutionalized theft on so grand a scale individual thievery could not be tolerated in any degree. Only by strict adherence to the rules of the theft could the illusion of it being lawful and civilized be maintained.
The death of a small hope hurts more than an age of despair.
“Run!” I’m only a little ashamed to say I outsprinted the boy. Old habits die hard. It’s good to be faster than what’s chasing you, but really the important thing in running away is to be faster than the slowest of those being pursued. Rule number one: be ahead of the next man. Or child.
Still, children hope in ways adults find hard to imagine. They carry their dreams before them, fragile, in both arms, waiting for the world to trip them.
