Dirt Behind the Daydream
Things could always be worse. This is a saying usually applied when things are not really that bad in the first place. But when things are truly dreadful—when they are life-altering—the axiom takes on especially empty quality. When one is in a circumstance where a dirty floor is the biggest headache one has to face, trying to escape trained killers certainly is capable of making a little extra sweeping pale by comparison:
“That was a Monday evening, less than two weeks ago. Lydia remembers it was Monday because she’d just brought Luca home from fútbol practice and he’d been hungry, so she’d given him a slice of toast and a banana, even though he was late getting to bed. He’d tracked dirt into the hallway because he forgot to take his cleats off at the door, and Lydia had been annoyed because she’d just swept. Less than two weeks ago, dirt on the floor in her hallway was a thing that could annoy her. It’s unimaginable. The reality of what happened is so much worse than the very worst of her imaginary fears had ever been.”
Irreconcilable Differences
Almost everybody reaches a point in their lives when they realize human beings a screwy bunch of intellectualized apes. Poor little Luca comes to that point much earlier than most. The shocking goodness of people and profound depravity of people may be recognized by Luca, but he still hasn’t reached the maturity where reconciliation is possible.
“They’re exhausted by the time they arrive. There are good migrant services in the city, and between that and Danilo’s modest heroics, the Hershey’s Kisses, Luca has difficulty reconciling all the genuine kindness of strangers. It seems impossible that good people – so many good people – can exist in the same world where men shoot up whole families at birthday parties and then stand over their corpses and eat their chicken. There’s a frazzling thrum of confusion that arcs out of Luca’s brain when he tries to make those two facts sit side by side.”
Protective Services
The imagery here run the gamut. You can taste the sour sweetness of the drink while feeling that discomfort of people avoiding your gaze. The pink and green of the décor is idiosyncratically garish in comparison to the comforting murmur of Cecelia, but both serve the same purpose:
“As the woman returns to the kitchen, Lydia is swamped with emotion. She swallows it with the lemonade. She examines the faces of the people at the other tables, but no one looks at her. Hermana Cecilia soon appears and brings them to her small office. She’s a tidy little woman, and her office is papered with children’s artwork. A pot on her desk holds a pink plastic flower. There are green chairs just like the ones in the big room. Hermana Cecilia’s voice is the most soothing sound Luca has ever heard, a peaceful, uninflected hum of determined protection”
Speaking in Tongues
The imagery in this example became all-too-familiar as it was brought to forefront following an election I the twenty-teens of the new millennium. Opinions and perspectives which had most been hidden beneath a veneer of polite quietude before was encouraged to be openly demonstrated in the aftermath. Everybody came to know the secret code of your neighbors:
“Lydia’s English is a help, but there are many different languages in el norte. There are codes Lydia hasn’t yet learned to decipher, subtle differences between words that mean almost, but not quite the same thing: migrant, immigrant, illegal alien . She learns that there are flags people use here, and those flags may be a warning or a welcome.”
