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%title The story of my childhood 9.9 %date 2006-03-18 19:35:51 :diary:livejournal:fossils:
Cut for lameness :D
My brothers towered above me, exchanging glances and smiles I could not interpret. My mother and father lived on an Olympus of subtleties and nuance. I watched them and wondered. I wondered about a lot of things."If you were a tiny man, as big as my thumb," I said to my father, "and you stood inside my mouth, and I closed my mouth, would you suffocate and die?"
My father stared at me.
"Jane," he said, "I'm speechless."
"'I'm speechless' is speech," I said, somewhat mollified by this linguistic triumph.
I resented the state of childhood wonder. It was insatiable, yet it seemed to me to be no more than a puerile affliction, like baby teeth. My ignorance struck me as a bizarre anomaly, for I felt, with utter certainty, that I was - how can I say this? - that I was sufficient. Evidence to the contrary forced itself on me every hour of every day, but that seemed to me some preposterous misunderstanding.
- The Evolution of Jane by Cathleen Schine
EDIT: Not quite sure what a 'fother' is, so I figured 'father' was close enough :oP