Status Updates From In Custody

"That friendship still existed, even if there had been a muddle, a
misunderstanding. He had imagined he was taking Nur’s poetry into safe
custody, and not realized that if he was to be custodian of Nur’s genius, then
Nur would become his custodian and place him in custody too. This
alliance could be considered an unendurable burden – or else a shining
honour. Both demanded an equal strength."

"He considered touching her, putting an arm around her stooped shoulders and drawing her
to him.
But he could not make that move: it would have permanently
undermined his position of power over her, a position that was as important
to her as to him: if she ceased to believe in it, what would there be for her to
do, where would she go? Such desolation could not be admitted. "

"He hoped his former life of non-events, non-happenings, would be
resumed, empty and hopeless, safe and endurable. That was the only life he
was made for, although life was not perhaps the right term. He needed one
that was more grey, more neutral, more shadowy. "

‘All
one can resume, at my age, is the primordial sleep. I am going to curl up on
my bed like a child in its mother’s womb and I shall sleep, shall wait for
sleep to come.’

"Before Time crushes us into dust we must record our struggle against it. We must engrave our name in the sand before the wave comes to sweep it away and make it a part of the ocean."

‘You see what I mean? Always afraid, always saying how can I, I will be killed, murdered, caught, made to do this, made to do that. Who can make you do what you don’t want to do? Have you no tongue? Can you not speak? '

"The first
desolation at his loss of them was being gradually filled this evening, as an
empty glass with water, with the realization that that loss had simplified his
existence, reduced it once again to a pure emptiness with which he knew
how to cope, having coped so long. "

"Deven sank back into his chair, weak with relief that the punishment period
was over. Tension had snapped. It lay in dead coils at his feet, exhausted."