“Being his real brother I could feel I live in his shadows, but I never have and I do not now. I live in his glow.”
“We're much alike, bee, you and me," I said. "You may carry your pack underneath you and your rifle may stick out of your bottom. But you and me, bee, are much alike.”
“I must survive. I have promises to keep.”
“There's a mouse in here with me. He's sitting there in the light of the lamp, looking up at me. He seems as surprised to see me as I am to see him. There he goes. I can hear him still, scurrying about somewhere under the hayrick. I think he's gone now. I hope he comes back. I miss him already.”
“Tonight, I want very much to believe that there’s a heaven, that death is not a full stop, and that we will all see one another again.”
“It's no good wishing for the impossible. Don't wish. Remember. Remembrances are real.”
“I could believe only in the hell I was living in, a hell on earth, and it was man-made, not God-made.”
“I tried to smile back, but no smile came, only tears.”
“After this night is over, then you can drift away, they you can sleep for ever, for nothing will ever matter again.”
“But I didn’t dare. That has always been my trouble. I’ve never dared enough.”
“There were several recently dug graves in the churchyard, but I found only one that was freshly dug and covered with fresh flowers. I had known Anna only from a few laughing words, from the light in her eyes, a touch of hands and a fleeting kiss, but I felt an ache inside me such as I had not felt since I was a child, since my father’s death. I looked up at the church steeple, a dark arrow pointing at the moon and beyond, and tried with all my heart and mind to believe she was up there somewhere in that vast expanse of infinity, up there in Sunday-school Heaven, in Big Joe’s happy Heaven. I couldn’t bring myself to think it. I knew she was lying in the cold earth at my feet. I knelt down and kissed the earth, then left her there. The moon sailed above me, following behind me, through the trees, lighting my way back to camp. By the time I got there I had no more tears left to cry. The”
“was at playtime. Big Joe came up to school to see Charlie and me. He just stood and watched us from outside the school gate. He did that often when Charlie and I first went off to school together — I think he was finding it lonely at home without us. I ran over to him. He was breathless, bright-eyed with excitement. He had something to show me. He opened his cupped hands just enough for me to be able to see. There was a slowworm curled up inside. I knew where he’d got it from — the churchyard, his favorite hunting ground. Whenever we went up to put flowers on Father’s grave, Big Joe would go off on his own, hunting for more creatures to add to his collection; that’s when he wasn’t just standing there gazing up at the tower and singing Oranges and Lemons at the top of his voice and watching the swifts screaming around the church tower. Nothing seemed to make him happier than that. I knew Big Joe would put his slowworm in with all his other creatures. He kept them in boxes at the back of the woodshed at home — lizards, hedgehogs, all sorts. I stroked his slowworm with my finger, and said it was lovely, which it was. Then he wandered off, walking down the lane humming his Oranges and Lemons”
“They are being driven by a psychopathic Indian apparently bent on killing them all, overtaking on blind rises, racing some other bus to settle an old score, hurtling into corners without slowing down.”
“The myths emphasized the relatedness of life, for in them plants and animals talked and exhibited other human characteristics. The myths taught young Curly that everything had its place and function and that all things and animals were important The stories also gave him a feeling of balance; one, for example, told how the animals got together one day and decided to get back at mankind for killing and eating them. Each animal decided on a different disease he would give to man in retribution. Upon hearing of this, the plants got together and each one decided to provide a remedy for a specific disease. The telling of this myth might lead to the handing down of ancient wisdom about the medicinal properties of various leaves, bark, roots, and herbs.”
“Tragedy was like that, a razor that sliced through time, severing the now from the before, incising the what-might-have-been from reality as cleanly as any surgeon’s blade.”
“That’s what she keeps you around for, to diddle her fiddle. Because you’re low-hung and she’s high-strung!”
“I’m not much of a chess player, but there is an aspect of the game that I find fascinating. After a while, you can almost see lines of force between the pieces. Areas of danger where it is physically impossible to move pieces into. Clouds of possibility, forbidden zones.”
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