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 Posted: Thu May 08, 2008 9:03 pm
"It's ugly," he said. "It's so ugly that it makes you want to grit your teeth and make it go away."
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Posted: Thu May 08, 2008 9:06 pm
"Then I'd knock it down." She didn't have to think about that one, either. "It's just a wall."
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Posted: Thu May 08, 2008 9:08 pm
"But that wall could be supporting an entire building," he said. "There could be people in the building, innocent people that could be hurt because of the loss of the wall. There could be all sorts of things hurt because of you knocking down that one annoying wall."
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Posted: Thu May 08, 2008 9:13 pm
This was getting confusing and traumatising. Wisp scrubbed her hands through her hair; out of the yellow sulfurous light from the streetlamp she pulled a yellow star-sprinkle of the same shade and flipped it through her fingers. "But," she protested, "but -- that's not the same," she said, not entirely sure it wasn't. "I thought it was just a wall. If it's a building, I can't knock it down. Even if it's really ugly. I could try to -- I don't know!"
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Posted: Thu May 08, 2008 9:15 pm
He nodded, knowing it would take her a while to think it through. "Now, knowing all that, you'd have to walk away. You don't want to hurt the puppies or the kitties, or the kids that live upstairs. But if you had the choice, would you go looking for more walls just like it?"
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Posted: Thu May 08, 2008 9:22 pm
Wisp scrubbed her hand through her hair again; she still had the star sprinkle there, unknowing, and got a big cooler-yellow blob of colour in her blonde hair. It was a big deal for her: she saw things in blacks and in whites, and Chris knew very well when she was getting desperate and unhappy to understand.
"So," she said, a little wild at the eyes, "so you're saying, that you being a superhero, it's like you looking for walls? But it's people? Hurting people?"
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Posted: Thu May 08, 2008 9:24 pm
He nodded. "Bad people to me are like ugly walls to you," he said simply. "And bad people that shoot my best friends are really asking to be knocked down."
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Posted: Thu May 08, 2008 9:26 pm
"But what if I just painted a little picture," she said, nearly crying in frustration and vexation at this point, guilty as heck -- "a little one at the corner, so that nobody would notice? It'd still be an ugly wall, but it'd be a little better because there's this little picture. That's what you did. You just put the handcuffs on that thief, and made it a little better, even if you only hurt him a bit -- can't it work like that, Chris?"
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Posted: Thu May 08, 2008 9:28 pm
He sighed, giving in just because he didn't want her to cry. "Maybe," he said. "Now let's go home. It's almost breakfast time, anyway."
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