READIN

🦋 Branching rapidly outward...

How beautiful it is, this world, even if it is only a simulacrum. At least there is that to fall back on.

'What are you saying in your confession?'

'What I said before: that I cannot afford to believe. That in my line of work one has to suspend belief. [Ooh, lovely! -- ed.] That belief is an indulgence, a luxury. That it gets in the way.'

'Really. Some of us would say the luxury that we cannot afford is unbelief.'

She waits for more.

'Unbelief -- entertaining all possibilities, floating between opposites -- is the mark of a leisurely existence, a leisured existence,' the woman goes on. 'Most of us have to choose. Only the light soul hangs in the air.' She leans closer. 'For the light soul, let me offer a word of advice. They may say they demand belief, but in practice they will be satisfied with passion. Show them passion and they will let you through.'

'Passion?' she replies. 'Passion the dark horse? I would have though that passion leads one away from the light, not towards it. Yet in this place, you say, passion is good enough.'

I am liking the juxtaposition of belief and passion a lot. Costello thinks the line "Only the light soul hangs in the air" must be a quotation; I am not finding anything to back this up.

posted afternoon of Saturday, February 14th, 2009
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