05-02-2025, 01:45 AM
Jude's return was delayed by the psychic torture he inflicted upon himself via imagining this exact conversation with its infinite branching humiliations. The scales were set out. On one hand side was Near's singular power; on the other Near's singular ability to misunderstand Jude. There is no clear path to anything, no high road. It is stumbling through brambles, being torn apart by small questions and huffs of disbelief.
It's only the world they're talking about, only all of human life.
The question being obviously rhetorical, he does not answer it. In the time Jude had spent balancing the scales, he persuaded himself both of the inevitability of the painful path and the necessity of enduring it. Never does Near consider there is something wrong with him and his ability to parse what is being said. Blame is externally assigned. He is still the only person Jude has ever known who can do what he does. Jude said 'useful' and moderated it as not to inflate Near's ego. The real word is 'valuable', and the attendant adjective is 'very'. The Family had never spoken like Near could exist; they cannot possibly know what he is, or they would have killed him already. He is a weapon and a shield that they cannot anticipate.
This is too much to say. You could be useful is the tepid, obfuscating confession.
An apology is survivable. Jude assumes it's for the thing about the floor and not about Guthrie, and the former is easier in terms of feeling some measure of sincere remorse. "I'm sorry," he says, as a tired middle-schooler might when called up to the teacher's desk after class, already knowing the first delivery will be found unsatisfactory and a second will soon be demanded. Jude soldiers on -- for the good of the world, he tells himself, including Near's own good -- though Near is unlikely to be grateful. If Near was drowning, Jude thinks, he would complain about being pulled out, during and after.
It's only the world they're talking about, only all of human life.
The question being obviously rhetorical, he does not answer it. In the time Jude had spent balancing the scales, he persuaded himself both of the inevitability of the painful path and the necessity of enduring it. Never does Near consider there is something wrong with him and his ability to parse what is being said. Blame is externally assigned. He is still the only person Jude has ever known who can do what he does. Jude said 'useful' and moderated it as not to inflate Near's ego. The real word is 'valuable', and the attendant adjective is 'very'. The Family had never spoken like Near could exist; they cannot possibly know what he is, or they would have killed him already. He is a weapon and a shield that they cannot anticipate.
This is too much to say. You could be useful is the tepid, obfuscating confession.
An apology is survivable. Jude assumes it's for the thing about the floor and not about Guthrie, and the former is easier in terms of feeling some measure of sincere remorse. "I'm sorry," he says, as a tired middle-schooler might when called up to the teacher's desk after class, already knowing the first delivery will be found unsatisfactory and a second will soon be demanded. Jude soldiers on -- for the good of the world, he tells himself, including Near's own good -- though Near is unlikely to be grateful. If Near was drowning, Jude thinks, he would complain about being pulled out, during and after.