Five hundred souls.
I carried them in my fingers, like suitcases. Or I'd throw them over my shoulder. It was only the the children I carried in my arms.
So many humans.
So many colors.
Then came Hitler.
Markus ZusakSummer came.
For the books thief, everything was going nicely.
For me, the sky was the color of Jews.
When I recollect her, I see a long list of colors, but it's the three in which I saw her in the flesh that resonate the most. Sometimes I manage to float far above those three moments. I hang suspended, until a septic truth bleeds toward clarity.
That's when I see them formulate:
THE COLORS
RED: [rectangle]
WHITE: [circle]
BLACK: [swastika]
They fall on top of each other. The scribbled signature black, onto the blinding global white, onto the thick soupy red.
Steadily, the room shrank, till the book thief could touch the shelves within a few small steps. She ran the back of her hand along the first shelf, listening to the shuffle of her fingernails gliding across the spinal cord of each book. It sounded like an instrument, or the notes of running feet. She used both hands. She raced them. One shelf against the other. And she laughed. Her voice was sprawled out, high in her throat, and when she eventually stopped and stood in the middle of the room, she spent many minutes looking from the shelves to her fingers and back again.
How many books had she touched?
How many had she felt?
She walked over and did it again, this time much slower, with her hand facing forward, allowing the dough of her palm to feel the small hurdle of each book. It felt like magic, like beauty, as bright lines of light shone down from a chandelier. Several times, she almost pulled a title from its place but didn't dare disturb them. They were too perfect.
Better that we leave the paint behind," Hans told her, "than ever forget the music.
Markus ZusakTrust was accumulated quickly, due primarily to the brute strength of the man's gentleness, his thereness.
Markus ZusakTag: trust gentleness pg-36
It's much easier . . . to be on the verge of something than to actually be it. This would still take time.
Markus ZusakMy heart applauds inside my ears, first like a roaring crowd, then slows and slows until it's a solitary person, clapping with unbridled sarcasm.
Clap. Clap.
Clap.
Well done, Ed.
Well given up.
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