(no subject)
We shot past a darkened house and past a parked Jeep, then crashed into a waterfall high above the sea. I got out of the car and sat down on a rock, then lit up the marijuana pipe. "Well," I said to Heidi, "this is it. We must have taken a wrong turn."
She laughed and sucked on some moss. Then she sat down across from me on a log. "You're funny," she said. "You're very strange--and you don't know why, do you?"
I shook my head softly and drank some gin.
"No," I said. "I'm stupid."
"It's because you have the soul of a teenage girl in the body of an elderly dope fiend," she whispered. "That is why you have problems." She patted me on the knee. "Yes. That is why people giggle with fear every time you come into a room. That is why you rescued me from those dogs in Venice."
I stared out to sea and said nothing for a while. But somehow I knew she was right. Yes sir, I said slowly to myself, I have the soul of a teenage girl in the body of an elderly dope fiend. No wonder they can't understand me.
This is a hard dollar, on most days, and not many people can stand it. Indeed. If the greatest mania of all is passion: and if I am a natural slave to passion: and if the balance between my brain and my soul and my body is as wild and delicate as the skin of a Ming vase--
Well, that explains a lot of things, doesn't it? We need look no further. Yes sir, and people wonder why I seem to look at them strangely. Or why my personal etiquette often seems makeshift and contradictory, even clinically insane... Hell, I don't miss those whispers, those soft groans of fear when I enter a civilized room. I know what they're thinking, and I know exactly why. They are extremely uncomfortable with the idea that I am a teenage girl trapped in the body of a 60-year-old career criminal who has already died 16 times. Sixteen, all documented. I have been crushed and beaten and shocked and drowned and poisoned and stabbed and shot and smothered and set on fire by my own bombs...
All these things have happened, and probably they will happen again. I have learned a few tricks along the way, a few random skills and simple avoidance techniques--but mainly it has been luck, I think, and a keen attention to karma, along with my natural girlish charm.
She laughed and sucked on some moss. Then she sat down across from me on a log. "You're funny," she said. "You're very strange--and you don't know why, do you?"
I shook my head softly and drank some gin.
"No," I said. "I'm stupid."
"It's because you have the soul of a teenage girl in the body of an elderly dope fiend," she whispered. "That is why you have problems." She patted me on the knee. "Yes. That is why people giggle with fear every time you come into a room. That is why you rescued me from those dogs in Venice."
I stared out to sea and said nothing for a while. But somehow I knew she was right. Yes sir, I said slowly to myself, I have the soul of a teenage girl in the body of an elderly dope fiend. No wonder they can't understand me.
This is a hard dollar, on most days, and not many people can stand it. Indeed. If the greatest mania of all is passion: and if I am a natural slave to passion: and if the balance between my brain and my soul and my body is as wild and delicate as the skin of a Ming vase--
Well, that explains a lot of things, doesn't it? We need look no further. Yes sir, and people wonder why I seem to look at them strangely. Or why my personal etiquette often seems makeshift and contradictory, even clinically insane... Hell, I don't miss those whispers, those soft groans of fear when I enter a civilized room. I know what they're thinking, and I know exactly why. They are extremely uncomfortable with the idea that I am a teenage girl trapped in the body of a 60-year-old career criminal who has already died 16 times. Sixteen, all documented. I have been crushed and beaten and shocked and drowned and poisoned and stabbed and shot and smothered and set on fire by my own bombs...
All these things have happened, and probably they will happen again. I have learned a few tricks along the way, a few random skills and simple avoidance techniques--but mainly it has been luck, I think, and a keen attention to karma, along with my natural girlish charm.