If you’re a writer, an artist or any sort of craftsman you know what it’s like to find sudden bursts of inspiration. Even walking down the street something simple can yank you into a stream of ideas–maybe a blacked-out window reminds you of a foreclosed building, which suggests to you a story (or a picture, or a sculpture, or…) hidden inside, waiting to be revealed.
“As soon as men decide that all means are permitted to fight an evil, then their good becomes indistinguishable from the evil that they set out to destroy.”
Have you ever eaten those black licorice jelly beans? I can’t blame you if you haven’t: they’re terrible. They make me gag. They were also, rest her soul, my wife’s favorite. She’d beg for me to get them on any shopping trip and what could I do? I caved. Even when she asked me if I liked them, I gritted my teeth and said I did. You make sacrifices now and then in a marriage, or you end up wishing you did.
The old man feels the cold metal in his hand: he clutches it before reluctantly handing the weapon to his protégé. He could have faced the same trials that he now puts his student to: he could have been a hero had he devoted his life to it. Instead he has run from this all his life. Only now, when the darkness is at its peak, when no further choices are left–he is forced to act. He takes some comfort in the fact that he is too old to fight. He can shift the responsibility to another.
