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Comfort was the drug she hadn’t understood until it was too late and she was hooked on cups of tea and book-lined shelves, nights uninterrupted by the wail of sirens and the ceaseless churning of helicopters overhead.
Omnia mutantur, nihil interit. Everything changes, nothing perishes. Darlington had rolled his eyes as he gave the translation on one of their visits. “Don’t ask me why a society built around Greek necromancy thinks it’s appropriate to quote a Roman poet. Omnia dicta fortiori si dicta Latina.” “I know you want me to ask, so I’m not going to.” He’d actually smiled. “Everything sounds more impressive in Latin.”
All she wanted to do was sit, unbothered in a circle of lamplight, and live someone else’s life.
“You a lawyer?” “I am.” “You talk like one.” “I don’t consider that an insult.” “It’s not an insult. If I wanted to insult you, I’d call you two pounds of shit in a one-pound bag.
It’s too easy to believe that we’re being watched and studied by something with infinite patience, as we rush unknowing toward an irreversible moment of revelation.
The awful truth was that if she could have stopped loving her mother, she would have. She would have let Eitan make his threats and stayed away forever. But she couldn’t shake the habit of loving Mira, and she couldn’t untangle the longing she felt for the mother she might have had from the desire to protect the one she did have.
Sophomore. From the Greek sophos meaning wise, and moros meaning fool. A little joke one of her professors had made.
Mercy grinned. “I like expensive things.” “He’s not a cashmere scarf, Mercy. He has horns.” “I have a birthmark shaped like Wisconsin.” “I’m leaving.”
The victors choose who should be lauded as a bulwark against tyrants and who may be sneered at as the enemy of inevitable change.
Traditionally, we are told the moral is “There is no reward for serving the wicked.” But we might just as well understand the story to posit this question: “Isn’t it a merry thing to cheat death?”
The moral offered in most readings is strange indeed: “Let nothing keep you from your purpose.” Then are we to understand ourselves as the wolf? Why is the clever goat not our model? Take then this lesson: “When faced with death, better to dance than to lie down for it.”
Mercy was singing to herself. “And if I die today I’ll be a happy phantom …”
Tori Amos ♥️
“I’m bound to you, Stern. To the woman who brought me out of hell. I will serve you ’til the end of days.”
