"Long bus ride," he rejoined, with a tone of voice that implied he was generally not the sort of person to ride buses. Unfortunately, he was also not the sort of person that drove. He had his license - the Family had considered it too strange for the twins not to possess them - but he never had his own car, and there had been just enough wariness in the collective to ensure Jude never had access to anyone's keys. When he left, he'd just - walked off. Well, run off was technically more accurate, given the speed with which he'd departed, and the Family had been living in Salt Lake City at the time, but these and other details were idle conversation fodder, held in reserve for desperate measures.
He smiled at Near's comment; it reached his eyes. "They do," Jude said, and he sounded genuinely amused, as if the saying was as clever as it was true. The pots did always boil, and conclusions were always arrived at, and rivers flowed to the sea.
'Nothing in life is guaranteed' - another cliche, intended to guard against entitlement, but it had different connotations entirely, from a quantum perspective. Nothing was promised, nothing was sure, no particle's speed or placement -- somewhere, the watched pot did not boil. "Two minutes." Inevitability coexisted with possibility.
"Do you think you'll sell this house?" It felt as good a question as any, if they were going to be making late night conversation. Surely, too, it should be easier for Near to talk of these things - the real, the tangible, the probable, all of them preferable to the possible and impossible and inconvenient. Jude sat poised with a list of alternate questions, such as, 'Do you have a girlfriend?' 'How old is your dog?' 'Do you like the weather here?', all of which felt more natural to him as he settled into the role he knew how to play. It had been too unfamiliar, even painful, to try to be the other person, the Jude who needed to explain what eerie catastrophe loomed on the Farrs' horizon. This was easy. This he knew.
He smiled at Near's comment; it reached his eyes. "They do," Jude said, and he sounded genuinely amused, as if the saying was as clever as it was true. The pots did always boil, and conclusions were always arrived at, and rivers flowed to the sea.
'Nothing in life is guaranteed' - another cliche, intended to guard against entitlement, but it had different connotations entirely, from a quantum perspective. Nothing was promised, nothing was sure, no particle's speed or placement -- somewhere, the watched pot did not boil. "Two minutes." Inevitability coexisted with possibility.
"Do you think you'll sell this house?" It felt as good a question as any, if they were going to be making late night conversation. Surely, too, it should be easier for Near to talk of these things - the real, the tangible, the probable, all of them preferable to the possible and impossible and inconvenient. Jude sat poised with a list of alternate questions, such as, 'Do you have a girlfriend?' 'How old is your dog?' 'Do you like the weather here?', all of which felt more natural to him as he settled into the role he knew how to play. It had been too unfamiliar, even painful, to try to be the other person, the Jude who needed to explain what eerie catastrophe loomed on the Farrs' horizon. This was easy. This he knew.