Ebook, idumea

idumea/content/005.tex

@@ -1,3 +1,6 @@
+\hypertarget{end-of-endings-2403-rye-2409}{%
+\subsection{\texorpdfstring{End Of Endings --- 2403×Rye --- 2409}{End Of Endings --- 2403 × Rye --- 2409}}\label{end-of-endings-2403-rye-2409}}
+
 Some of my readers may be wondering why it is that I know so much about The Woman.
 
 ``How does she know all of this?'' some might be wondering. ``Does she really know all these things that The Woman did? Does she know who the kindly shop owner is? The one who pet on The Woman as she sobbed from too spicy a chili?'' Others might be wondering --- and rightly so! --- ``How much of this is actually real? Surely she does not know The Woman's innermost thoughts! All this talk of ideas in shapes being set before her is quite silly.''
@@ -6,7 +9,7 @@ My answer is that tired phrase: ``It is complicated.'' Of course I do not know h
 
 What I do have, though, is a story. I have the story I learned from The Woman's Friend and Therapist and Cocladist and Lover, the one I learned from The Blue Fairy. I have all of that story that I learned, and I have that story that I lived.
 
-\secdiv
+\begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{0.5pt}\end{center}
 
 One day --- I remember it being quite a warm one, though every sim has different weather, and we as a clade are not all that keen on cold --- one day, The Woman came to me.
 
@@ -56,7 +59,7 @@ I will admit, friends, that I looked down at my pajama pants and t-shirt and lau
 
 ``Perhaps one never does,'' she said, ``and yet you exist so well contained. The whole of you exists within the person sitting before me. You are Rye, the author. You are Rye, the sincere. You are Rye who is kind. You are these things and you are none other.''
 
-My readers will know well that I have too many words in my. Why, just look at all that I have written already! I have gone on at length about Laotian food and lovers and friends and family and mochas and melancholy. I have accused myself already a handful of times of intruding on my own story, of being helpless before the graphomania that guides my paw. So it is that you must believe me when I say that I was left speechless. All of this ceaseless torrent of words within me simply stopped.
+My readers will know well that I have too many words in me. Why, just look at all that I have written already! I have gone on at length about Laotian food and lovers and friends and family and mochas and melancholy. I have accused myself already a handful of times of intruding on my own story, of being helpless before the graphomania that guides my paw. So it is that you must believe me when I say that I was left speechless. All of this ceaseless torrent of words within me simply stopped.
 
 I do not know if you have ever been complimented in just the right way by just the right person, but if you have, you well know that it is startling in its intensity. Had someone else said these things about me, even my beloved up-trees, I might well have blushed and stammered a thank you and felt good for the rest of the day.
 
@@ -75,46 +78,14 @@ She smiled --- another blessing! --- and nodded to me.
 ``She has, at that,'' I said.
 
 ``We sat in the solarium and spoke about what reading \emph{is.} She spoke of taking a story or a poem and wrapping oneself up in it. She gave me an example. She recited a poem:
-\newpage
 
-\begin{verse}
-``Too many suits move in too many lines.\\
-They circle banquet tables, hawk-eyed,\\
-hunting crudites, canapés, bruschetta.\\
-Fingers ferry food — fish, perhaps — finding\\
-slack-jawed mouths already open,\\
-squawking at wayward children\\
-or bemoaning The Market,\\
-whatever that may be.
+\{\{\% verse \%\}\} Too many suits move in too many lines. They circle banquet tables, hawk-eyed, hunting crudites, canapés, bruschetta. Fingers ferry food --- fish, perhaps --- finding slack-jawed mouths already open, squawking at wayward children or bemoaning The Market, whatever that may be. At some point, who cares how long ago, death surfaced, claimed one, submerged again. Who knows how well they knew him, their backs turned, studiously deciding that he is no longer of them? One could never guess. We can say his suit was very fine, perhaps, that the room is tastefully furnished, the casket silver, the bar, open, quite good, and none of them are drunk yet, or at least none look it. ``Good man, good man,'' they mutter, doing all they can to convince each other through well-rehearsed performances, that this must be the case. The silently bereaved already sit graveside.'' \{\{\% /verse \%\}\}
 
-``At some point, who cares how long ago,\\
-death surfaced, claimed one, submerged again.\\
-Who knows how well they knew him,\\
-their backs turned, studiously\\
-deciding that he is no longer of them?
-
-``One could never guess.
-
-``We can say his suit was very fine, perhaps,\\
-that the room is tastefully furnished,\\
-the casket silver, the bar, open,\\
-quite good, and none of them are drunk yet,\\
-or at least none look it.
-
-``\,``Good man, good man,'' they mutter,\\
-doing all they can to convince each other\\
-through well-rehearsed performances,\\
-that this must be the case.
-
-The silently bereaved already sit graveside.''
-\end{verse}
-
-\newpage
-\noindent I turned those words over and over in my head for a minute, since The Woman had seemed quite comfortable sitting in silence with me. She used that time to drink her water while I played back the words again and again, looking down at my paws, and then returned my gaze to hers. ``There is a difference between the performance of grief and grieving, is there not?''
+I turned those words over and over in my head for a minute, since The Woman had seemed quite comfortable sitting in silence with me. She used that time to drink her water while I played back the words again and again, looking down at my paws, and then returned my gaze to hers. ``There is a difference between the performance of grief and grieving, is there not?''
 
 ``It is as you say. There is performed grief and performative grief. We of the tenth stanza were quite sad when Lagrange came back with us but not Should We Forget. We received condolences from many, some flowers and many kind words. Ever Dream came over and spoke with me about grief as we sat out on the field, where she said,''It is quite sad, is it not? To lose someone you have known for so long is quite sad.'' I agreed, and then drew a line around the topic.'' She performed such a motion now, describing an arc before her with one of her well kept claws, before dismissing it with a wave. ``This was grief performed.''
 
-I nodded, and in my heart, I think I knew what was coming next, for I found my muscles bunching up as if in preparation for something --- flight, perhaps? I do not know, my friends.
+I nodded, and in my heart, I think I knew what was coming next, for I found my muscles bunching up as in in preparation for something --- flight, perhaps? I do not know, my friends.
 
 ``And Warmth In Fire came over, too, so that it could sit at our table and weep rather than eat. Ey wept, and then asked to retreat, and we guided her up to Should We Forget's room so that they could lay in her bed for a while in silence. When it came back downstairs, ey thanked us kindly and left, and when we went back upstairs to look, there was a flower wrought out of some subtly glowing metal left on Should We Forget's pillow. It lays there still.''
 
@@ -278,7 +249,9 @@ She nodded.
 
 ``I see we understand it in the same way. I cannot tell, either. I can tell you, though, that watching Motes brought me the closest to the joy that I have been seeking that I have ever been.'' She frowned down to her glass, now empty. When she continued, her speech was halting, slow, thoughtful. ``Not\ldots for me, not my own joy, and I think not even for her, though the little skunk certainly seems quite joyful. It is\ldots adjacent to the joy. It brought me near to the joy, but did not necessarily bring the joy to me.''
 
-\secdiv
+\begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{0.5pt}\end{center}
+
+\label{warmth}
 
 We talked for some time more, The Woman and I, and discussed what it was that we could do to help her find joy. I am sorry to say, though, that we were not quite able to come up with something.