The book beneath his arm gravitates to being held against his belly, arms crossing comfortably as they go. Armand, having shrugged at all those laws—they should have committed to more, Christianity got away with ten of them—and denying outward sign of pleasure for praise, listens to the rest.
Thinks of being a product. Of being raised, sectioned off, manifested. The pavement underfoot takes on a new kind of quality, like he is simply rolling the whole earth beneath him, pushed along by the press of the toe of his shoe, and he is staying in place.
A vicious and sudden thought: Daniel is laying a trap for him. Only rhetorical, maybe, but a trap nonetheless. But maybe he isn't. He can't read his mind. He can't know.
"Weeds are no more or less evil than the bed of flowers," Armand says, from somewhere slightly behind himself, walking several paces back, it feels like. "And you know them when you see them."
A retreat, from philosophy to metaphor. Embarrassing.
no subject
Thinks of being a product. Of being raised, sectioned off, manifested. The pavement underfoot takes on a new kind of quality, like he is simply rolling the whole earth beneath him, pushed along by the press of the toe of his shoe, and he is staying in place.
A vicious and sudden thought: Daniel is laying a trap for him. Only rhetorical, maybe, but a trap nonetheless. But maybe he isn't. He can't read his mind. He can't know.
"Weeds are no more or less evil than the bed of flowers," Armand says, from somewhere slightly behind himself, walking several paces back, it feels like. "And you know them when you see them."
A retreat, from philosophy to metaphor. Embarrassing.