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And as I see it, they’re all innocents. Even the guilty. Everyone is guilty of something, and everyone still harbors a memory of childhood innocence, no matter how many layers of life wrap around it. Humanity is innocent; humanity is guilty, and both states are undeniably true.
“I feel bad for you,” said Citra. “Even when you’re food shopping, death is hiding right behind the milk.” “It never hides,” the scythe told them with a world-weariness that was hard to describe. “Nor does it sleep. You’ll learn that soon enough.” But it wasn’t something either of them was eager to learn.
For to put oneself above all other laws is a fundamental recipe for disaster.
a final willful act, making death his own choice, rather than the scythe’s. Denying the scythe, if not his method, then his madness.
“Yes, but we must each find our own way,” he told her. “Our own code of conduct. I prefer to see each person I glean as an individual deserving of an end that is unique.”
But Rowan cared. If he was going to put pen to paper – if he was going to do what a scythe does – he would do it right or not at all. And so far, as he looked at his painfully blank page, he was leaning toward “not at all.”
Life was about forging time, not just passing time.
The sanctity of the law … and the wisdom to know when it must be broken.
Finally Faraday looked to them. “Rowan is right,” he said. “They will find whatever button will make you dance, and dance you will, no matter how hideous the tune.”
If you’ve ever studied mortal age cartoons, you’ll remember this one. A coyote was always plotting the demise of a smirking long-necked bird. The coyote never succeeded; instead, his plans always backfired. He would blow up, or get shot, or splat from a ridiculous height. And it was funny. Because no matter how deadly his failure, he was always back in the next scene, as if there were a revival center just beyond the edge of the animation cell. I’ve seen human foibles that have resulted in temporary maiming or momentary loss of life. People stumble into manholes, are hit by falling objects,
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Nature deemed that to be born was an automatic sentence to death,
“‘To be painless is to be gainless.’”
Isn’t it good to know that we are all safe from the threat of the inferno? Except, of course, when we’re not.
The Thunderhead’s purpose is to sustain humanity. Mine is to mold it. The Thunderhead is the root, and I am the shears, pruning the limbs into fine form, keeping the tree vital. We are both necessary. And we are mutually exclusive.
“Guilt is the idiot cousin of remorse,”
“Never lose your humanity,” Scythe Faraday had told him, “or you’ll be nothing more than a killing machine.”
We became unnatural the moment we conquered death,
Without the threat of suffering, we can’t experience true joy. The best we get is pleasantness.”
When you need nothing, what else can life be but pleasant?
“It’s just like jumping into a cold pool. The anticipation is much worse than the reality. Take the leap, and I promise all will be well.”
Human nature is both predictable and mysterious; prone to great and sudden advances, yet still mired in despicable self-interest.
Hers was a gilded cage, but it was a cage nonetheless. Still, her ignorance was her bliss, and Rowan decided not to shatter her illusion that she was free.
“The world has a talent for rewarding bad behavior with stardom,”
We should all be on the same side. The side of humanity.”
The curb is the launching point for many a deed. To step off could be the start of a life-changing journey. On the other hand, to push someone off could crush that person beneath the wheels of a truck.
“I think all young women are cursed with a streak of unrelenting foolishness, and all young men are cursed with a streak of absolute stupidity.
Immortality cannot temper the folly or frailty of youth. Innocence is doomed to die a senseless death at our own hands, a casualty of the mistakes we can never undo.
The longer we live, the quicker the days seem to pass.
“I suspected you had a spark in you, but never dreamed it would be such an inferno!”
My greatest wish for humanity is not for peace or comfort or joy. It is that we all still die a little inside every time we witness the death of another. For only the pain of empathy will keep us human. There’s no version of God that can help us if we ever lose that.
our founders saw fit to call us scythes – because we are the weapons in mankind’s immortal hand.
“Will you be the eagle or the mouse, Rowan? Will you soar or will you scurry away? For those are the only two choices today.”
Socrates
Have we ever had an enemy worse than ourselves?
