But time heals. Or at least it forms scabs.
There is another version of the tale. That is the tale the women tell each other, in their private language that the men-children are not taught, and that the old men are too wise to learn. And in that version of the tale perhaps things happened differently. But then, that is a women’s tale, and it is never told to men.
Now this comic contains words, concepts and maybe a few images that some people may find offensive. If you suspect you are going to be one of those people, there’s a really easy solution to this. Don’t read it. It’s as simple as that.
I believe that you have the absolute right to think things that I find offensive, stupid, preposterous or dangerous, and that you have the right to speak, write, or distribute these things, and that I do not have the right to kill you, maim you, hurt you, or take away your liberty or property because I find your ideas threatening or insulting or downright disgusting. You probably think some of my ideas are pretty vile too. I.
What good is a vocabulary that isn’t used?
If there is a moral to this part of the story, and I distrust morals in the same way that I distrust beginnings, it is simply this: know that with which you deal.
We live in our heads. You know, we are these vast things that just go in and in forever, and not only that but we comprise all of the things that we imagine, we comprise all of the things we’ve dreamed, we comprise the things that we’ve believed and we comprise the things that we used to believe but we manage no longer to believe in.
A page turns. Destiny continues to walk.
The boy with the dirty face stood up and hugged Coraline tightly. ‘Take comfort in this,’ he whispered. ‘Th’art alive. Thou livest.
The bearded man lit his cigarette. “I’m a leprechaun,” he said. Shadow did not smile. “Really?” he said. “Shouldn’t you be drinking Guinness?” “Stereotypes. You have to learn to think outside the box,” said the bearded man. “There’s a lot more to Ireland than Guinness.” “You don’t have an Irish accent.” “I’ve been over here too fucken long.” “So you are originally from Ireland?” “I told you. I’m a leprechaun. We don’t come from fucken Moscow.
Sometimes I wonder if she transforms people into animals, or whether she finds the beast inside us, and frees it.
I loved that place as if it was a part of me, and perhaps, in some ways, it was.
There are things you cannot throw away, things you cannot leave for your loved ones to find when you are gone. Things you have to burn.
I believe I have the right to think and say the wrong things. I believe your remedy for that should be to argue with me or to ignore me, and that I should have the same remedy for the wrong things that I believe you think.
He was a creature of hope. For dreams are hopes, and echoes of hopes. And I am a creature of despair.
When I was four I believed everything, accepted everything, and was scared of nothing. Now I was eight, and I believed in what I could see and was scared of anything I couldn’t. Scared of things in the darkness, of things invisible to see.
I would not have understood that the best way to show people true things is from a direction that they had not imagined the truth coming, nor that the majesty and the magic of belief and dreams could be a vital part of life and of writing.
He stopped for a moment, and he thought about people, and about things, and about how hard it is to do anything for the first time.
It’s about focus. It’s about being you, but the you that people believe in. It’s about being the concentrated, magnified essence of you. It’s about becoming thunder, or the power of a running horse, or wisdom.
But hope, like heroes, can prove hard to kill.