“Who’s to say that it takes something like a drug to mess with your perception of reality? How did Hitler deceive a nation? How can one group of people look at the world and see one thing, and another see something completely different? One sees a town, another sees a desert. One sees beauty, another sees chaos.”
The skin of this world,” he said quietly.”
“It was there, beyond the skin of this world, that a cure of ugliness could be found.”
“Cause I don't think we ever really get over our childhood. It's always there, waiting.”
“What we see may deceive us - the skin may be deceptive - but there has to be one truth, right? It can't all just be a jumble of perceptions. So what really exists out there, beyond what we can see? We're so dependent on the surfaces of what we see. But if we could see past the skin of this world...”
“...beauty was found beyond the surface. It was there, beyond the skin of this world, that a cure of ugliness could be could.”
“I like stories of adventure. Especially if there’s some kind of disaster involved.”
The eyebrow remains arched.
I laugh. “I read the ones with happy endings, too.”
Josh gestures towards my shelves. “You read a lot.”
“Safer than going on a real adventure.”
Now he’s the one who laughs. “Maybe.”
“What I notice is that every adult or child I give a new set of Crayolas to goes a little funny. The kids smile, get a glazed look on their faces, pour the crayons out, and just look at them for a while....The adults always get the most wonderful kind of sheepish smile on their faces--a mixture of delight and nostalgia and silliness. And they immediately start telling you about all their experiences with Crayolas.”
“History does not care about the suffering of the individual. Only the outcome of their struggles.”
“Nah. I’m a consultant, of course. Everyone’s favorite nondescript yet well-paid white-collar job.”
“And yet what manner of man would I be, who has so much to say in the contest of words, if now I shirked this contest of blood?”
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