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Carolyn rose and stood alone in the dark, both in that moment and ever after.
“An innocent heart? In America?” She hesitated. “Possibly.”
She knew every word that had ever been spoken, but she could think of nothing to say that might ease his grief.
It echoed down the grimy hallways and squandered moments of his life, the answer to every question, the lyric of all songs.
Steve sighed, wishing for a cigarette. “The Buddha teaches respect for all life.” “Oh.” She considered this. “Are you a Buddhist?” “No. I’m an asshole. But I keep trying.”
“With this particular species of crazy, you stop trying to make things better. You start trying to maximize the bad. You pretend to like it. Eventually you start working to make everything as bad as possible. It’s an avoidance mechanism.” Jennifer looked Carolyn directly in the eyes. “It can’t actually work. That’s why they call it crazy.”
“That’s the risk in working to be a dangerous person,” she said. “There’s always the chance you’ll run into someone who’s better at it than you.”
‘Don’t worry.’ ” He and Naga exchanged glances. “What’s that thing next to it?” “It’s from the future. Don’t worry, Steve.”
Peace of mind is not the absence of conflict, but the ability to cope with it.
Carolyn’s eyes were like granite, against which soft things might smash and be broken.
“Yeah. I mean, it sucks. But you adjust.” She looked up at him, awed. To Carolyn, eight years old, that one sentence seemed to contain all that might ever be known of courage.
Then, kicking down the first stone of an avalanche, Steve said, “You have to be strong.”
No real thing can be so perfect as memory, and she will need a perfect thing if she is to survive. She will warm herself on the memory of you when there is nothing else, and be sustained.”
“Step down into the darkness with me, child.” Just that once, Father looked at her with real love. “I will make of you a God.”
Some people have an enormous capacity for feeling guilt, deserved or otherwise.
“You know I didn’t create this universe, right? I left my mark on it, and I like to think I made improvements, but I was only working with rules that were in place from the third age. Light was one of my touches, and pleasure.”
“Oh my God.” Father nodded. “Mine too, very possibly.”
