They made these improving remarks to one another, but Apollo leaned aside to say to Hermes: Son of Zeus, beneficent Wayfinder, would you accept a coverlet of chain, if only you lay by Aphrodite’s golden side? To this the Wayfinder replied, shining: Would I not, though, Apollo of distances! Wrap me in chains three times the weight of these, come goddesses and gods to see the fun; only let me lie beside the pale-golden one! The
I wish this story were different. I wish it were more civilized. I wish it showed me in a better light, if not happier, then at least more active, less hesitant, less distracted by trivia. I wish it had more shape. I wish it were about love, or about sudden realizations important to one's life, or even about sunsets, birds, rainstorms, or snow. Maybe it is about those things, in a way; but in the meantime there is so much else getting in the way, so much whispering, so much speculation about others, so much gossip that cannot be verified, so many unsaid words, so much creeping about and secrecy. And there is so much time to be endured, time heavy as fried food or thick fog; and then all at once these red events, like explosions, on streets otherwise decorous and matronly and somnambulent.
But we are fencing. Either he talks or I will. I know it, I can feel speech backing up inside me, it's so long since I've really talked with anyone. (...)And if I talk to him I'll say something wrong, give something away. I can feel it coming, a betrayal of myself. I don't want him to know too much.