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Optimism is the best fertilizer.
The stranger shrugged. “Names are so confining. They put you in a box. I’m me, and you can see who I am. I may change later. Why would I want a name to lock me into somebody I once was?”
He’d never had an intellectual argument with another person before. Even in school, he hadn’t been taught how to debate. There was no need when everyone believed the same thing and the Watchmaker always provided the answers. What was there to debate?
From here, he could hear the relentless mechanism of the tower’s huge timepiece, brute-force gears that beat time into submission.
Bees innately understood order, the perfection of geometry.
However, if he had remained content, hadn’t dared to break the rules, he would never have seen the most wonderful things in his life.
Her hair flew behind her like the tail of a black comet.
His tongue suddenly became stupid, connected to a brain that could not remember how to form conversation.
Francesca shrugged. “Nothing in life survives without a few scuffs and dents. It adds character, and it tastes just as good, maybe a little better.”
But Francesca had been watching him instead of the Angels. “I’ve never seen a look of such pure amazement in my life, Owenhardy.” She laughed and bent to kiss him on the cheek. “Thank you,” she said.
Nobody noticed the Anarchist on the streets, because he looked just like everyone else, but he was very different inside.
If a man has a perfect life but cannot make his own choices, then what good is that life?”
Francesca laughed as he picked himself up off the ground, but not at him. “A few scuffs will only bring out your character. One of the first skills to learn in tightrope walking is how to fall with grace.”
“In one week’s time, in honor of the summer solstice, the Magnusson Carnival Extravaganza has been requested to perform in Chronos Square!”
“A dragon! But dragons aren’t real!” “Your imagination is real,” the ringmaster said.
He was a naïve young man unschooled in the ways of the world, ill-equipped for what he had encountered after leaving the safety net of his small village.
Maybe naïve optimism was his defining force of character, and he had continued on his euphoric, hopeful path right over a cliff.
He could have made the carnival show so spectacular, if only their imaginations had been greater than their fears—breathtaking alchemical reactions igniting in a blaze like a thousand bonfires, converting base powders, rare earths, and a chain reaction of catalysts!
But after being expelled, he had survived, and thrived, and changed. The Anarchist glanced down at the alchemical symbol on his hand. He was a precipitate, a new being, created by a set of reactions. He flexed his other hand, the scarred one, felt a twinge of blind pain that went as deep as the bone. Such fire could change a person and change a civilization.
The resulting chaos would have been its own reward, a dash of cold water or a bracing shot of whiskey! The turmoil would strengthen human hearts and minds, cure them of the deadly effects of apathy and atrophy, stability and stagnation.
Owen Hardy had the potential to be an important catalyst, but he needed to be awakened. Optimism was such an insidious venom that it left a person too cheerful to know he had been poisoned. The young man was now awake, although not ready. Not yet . . . but the Anarchist had faith in entropy.
The energy slumbering within the elements would awaken with a roar.
“The best place to start an adventure is with a quiet, perfect life . . . and someone who realizes that it can’t possibly be enough.
The men just laughed. “No one goes out there. The Seven Cities are a dream, not for any man to find.” Owen puffed up his chest. “And what if I’m not just any man?” His answer brought another round of raucous laughter, and he added, “I don’t believe in the impossible. It doesn’t exist.”
His string of broken dreams was like a sequence of derailed steamliner cars strewn across the landscape.
A man could lose his past in a country like this—and that was exactly what Owen wanted. Parts of his past, anyway.
He slowly came to the conclusion that he had viewed her through the halo effect of his own fantasies.
And he survived, tougher, wiser, more confident, resilient—but at his core he was still Owen Hardy, an optimistic dreamer from Barrel Arbor.
redfire opals, chalcedony, aventurine, cinnabar, and sardelian,
The true revolution has to come from simple, everyday people like you. Not from grand pronouncements, but a quiet and building roar from a small crowd whisper. And you’ll be the first one. You’ll be a hero.”
“Always have been. Real name is Cassandra, not César. It’s just a haircut, a false mustache, and a name. The carnival has to keep up appearances.”
Francesca reached out to stroke his arm. “Thank your stars you’re not like them.”
As the gladiolas grow in their rows, I see the colorful spikes of flowers anxious to show off their blossoms to the world. They reach for the sky, but remain anchored to the ground . . . as a good dreamer should be.
The sun comes up, the sun goes down. Then there’s all the time in between. Hope is what remains to be seen.
His first novel, Resurrection, Inc., was inspired by the Rush album Grace Under Pressure, with lyrics by Neil Peart.
