LEAVING Options

[Mysteryman]

Mo. Thor.
I'm writing to you just before Hand (you remember him. At the batting cages, he threw the ball that hit Mo in the stomach) will jump from a moving car (ours) to a moving horse-drawn cart. Wait until you're older to try something like this - a lot older, I think - but then don't wait much longer. I can't believe we waited so long ourselves. This will be great. I'll finish the postcard when we're done.

[smarttman]

There is no point in repeating the usual platitudes. Bread and the sea: it is a subject we will tackle here.

Many years ago, before bread, there was the sea. Then one day in the fifteenth century there was bread. Many people worried about the consequences of having both bread and the sea. And there was good reason to worry.

But now we are past all that. We live in a world where we no longer have to worry about rivalries and vengeance, at least as they pertain to bread and the sea. But will it always be this way? We have treaties, and strong nets, and the one wall, but is it enough? Some would say it is not enough.

But what can we do? We cannot live in fear. We cannot hide in our shelters or wear dark cloaks and thigh-high boots. We have to go on living. We have to ride our bicycles and fly our kites and tie our friends in the shed with rope and duct tape. We have to live. There may come a day when the sea and the bread find a way to again bring their differences to our front porch. It could be tomorrow. Or next year. You could be dead by that time. But if you are not dead, you could be at work, drinking soda and writing words on paper -- or typing them. And then the sound of conflict will come to your ears, accompanied by a bright light, and the unmistakable heat of eternal fire.

[San]

They'll try me and convict me and I'll be killed in a chair. Or hanged; I'll be hanged because I'll want the pain, slow, the veins burning, bursting-
Oh, but that embarrassing erection at the end-