[excerpt] i'm be your emmylou and i'll be your june, if you'll be my graham and my johnny too
Calvin: Isn’t it strange that evolution would give us a sense of humour? When you think about it, it’s weird that we have a physiological response to absurdity. We laugh at nonsense. We like it. We think it’s funny. Don’t you think it’s odd that we appreciate absurdity? Why would we develop that way? How does it benefit us?
Hobbes: I suppose if we couldn’t laugh at things that don’t make sense, we couldn’t react to a lot of life.
Calvin: (after a long pause) I can’t tell if that’s funny or really scary.
There’s one more word left to write. Afraid of my hand and the way it flies up, up and away, I try it in another script. A dangerous hand, pressing hard to paper. My grip becomes determined, my pencil like a dagger pinning a single word down into existence. Latte, I write with the ts tight together, bridged with a single line that overtakes the word. This is what I’ve put down on paper, this word that punctures. I imagine the power, the terror, of winning hard-fought, violent battles every day. I imagine the ability to fight them somewhere other than in my imagination, and I can’t help the laugh that tumbles out.
I touch my fingers to the newly etched graphite. They come away dark, leaving the word smudged. The only trouble of course, with so much death, is knowing who won.
Hobbes: I suppose if we couldn’t laugh at things that don’t make sense, we couldn’t react to a lot of life.
Calvin: (after a long pause) I can’t tell if that’s funny or really scary.
There’s one more word left to write. Afraid of my hand and the way it flies up, up and away, I try it in another script. A dangerous hand, pressing hard to paper. My grip becomes determined, my pencil like a dagger pinning a single word down into existence. Latte, I write with the ts tight together, bridged with a single line that overtakes the word. This is what I’ve put down on paper, this word that punctures. I imagine the power, the terror, of winning hard-fought, violent battles every day. I imagine the ability to fight them somewhere other than in my imagination, and I can’t help the laugh that tumbles out.
I touch my fingers to the newly etched graphite. They come away dark, leaving the word smudged. The only trouble of course, with so much death, is knowing who won.