Von: If you were in my shoes, what would you do?
Kyra: I have no child, so you are asking the impossible.
Von: Reverse the situation then.
Kyra: What do you mean?
Von: I mean, what if you were faced with the same situation but from the point of view of a child.
Kyra: You mean if (she pauses)
Von: If the choice was the memory of your father.
Kyra: As in I had no memory of my father but--
Von: Yes.
Kyra: No.
5 comments:
I am, and have been since this morning, fascinated by this chapter, which embodies (in a particular way as others do in other ways) the astuteness so often seen in your writing. One sits with the result, found at the end of a chapter, and whether it just happens as you have testified or whether you fully recognize the means by which you achieve your end, knowing precisely what you want and how to go about getting it, technical rather than emotional so to speak, either way what you achieve is phenomenal. I am not even sure that I can dissect into mentionable reasons precisely why this little chapter immediately has become a favourite, but honesty would be one, honesty as it exists in the relationship between the two of them. What Kyra is to Von here is what each of us could only hope to have. All too easy it would be to offer words with the aim of lifting his heavy heart, too easy to hear and feel his agony, to rationalize and imagine and yet as she states, so matter-of-factly, the truth of it is that she could never know how she might have reacted in the same situation and not being a parent herself, not knowing what it would mean to have a child, she has no answer nor will she attempt to visualize. A second chance offered, so to speak, for her to respond as Von might have preferred, and again this is only in a manner of speaking for the question is not asked so that he may receive some sort of verification, but in the same manner by which she answers. A second chance, the question asked in reverse and her sober and assured negative answer. She offers herself, nothing more, nothing less. Superbly written!
Chapters are like homemade soup. They can, and I think this one does, age well, which is to say, at least for me, the flavors of my mind are enriched in time. Kyra's "No" rings in my mind, the tolling of a bell we have not heard in the story. Three years and this is, more or less, our first real insight, which is not clear at all, into her own view of her parents. :-)
As always Ms Storm, what would I do without your glorious comments. Thank you.
No... as in No she wouldn't do it?
Von and Kyra - is this a new bond forming or is it new? I know they have talked (and drank together) in the past... but is this different or a continuation of the same?
And the fractal is gorgeous.
Jen, Kyra and Von have had these sorts of conversations before, not many, but there are others similar. As for the "No," I left it purposely ambiguous. Having said that, her 'no' meant that she would not want those memories back. Her relationship with her parents was strained, to put in nicely.
Thanks for noticing the image. :-)
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