Motes Played edits, Marsh typesetting

idumea/content/005.tex

@@ -1,6 +1,3 @@
-\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.''
@@ -9,7 +6,7 @@ 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.
 
-\begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{0.5pt}\end{center}
+\secdiv
 
 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.
 
@@ -79,7 +76,37 @@ She smiled --- another blessing! --- and nodded to me.
 
 ``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:
 
-\{\{\% 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 \%\}\}
+\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.
+
+``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}
 
 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?''
 
@@ -249,7 +276,7 @@ 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.''
 
-\begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{0.5pt}\end{center}
+\secdiv
 
 \label{warmth}