Leopard at the Door

Authority is not a substitute for truth.

He is leaving a trail of golden thread, and later, in the quiet of my room, I will stitch it into a tapestry that will bind me to my past.

The beginning of the end, or the end of the beginning?

There is always a betrayal," he says. "We all have to let something go-in order to be free." I lean my head back against his shoulder and shut my eyes. To be free. Is that what I am? Free? "Who have you betrayed?" I ask. "I have betrayed so many people that for a long time I did not know myself." "Tell me." "I used to wash dishes in the kitchen, before you were born. I remember the brown ceramic sink, propped up on stilts. The tap leaked, a constant dripping of water. Over the years it had made a small dip in the ceramic, rough to touch. One day I came in and a small crack had spread itself across the sink. Eventually it would be two halves. That was how it was with me.

I have no sense of Steven's words; all I know is that if he is the spokesman for empire, then empire is an ugly, dissolute thing. His voice is like the whisper of the devil. Sugarcoated words, designed to make what is evil palatable so that more evil can be committed. Listening to him is like listening to the clean, efficient turning of the wheel at my uncle's bacon factory.