660: “Peter?”
What a Piece of Work I Am, Chapter 8 begins
“PETER?” said Ariane.
“Hmm?” I said. “Oh. Sorry, I got a little carried away with my thoughts there.”
“You were somewhere else.”
“Remember when cleaning fish was a skill that nearly everyone possessed?”
“What?”
“Now the fish in the markets comes from far away. It’s minced and flaked and sifted and mingled and pressed into rectangular blocks.”
“Progress, kid.”
“Of course, the resort can’t be blamed for that.”
“Is that what you’re talking about?”
“Yeah. The resort was just part of it, a symptom, not a cause, just another signpost along a certain path that Babbington was following, but certainly one reason that people were so fascinated by that place was the fact that it represented a turning, or the possibility of a turning, the possibility that Babbington might take a turn, follow some other path.”
“Oh, sure. Definitely. For me, that was part of its appeal, maybe the whole secret of its appeal. But I kept my mouth shut about it. I knew that opinions were divided. I had to talk Denny into walking to the site where it was under construction. I was pleading, and he was practically whining about how he didn’t want to go, but finally he agreed—”
“—because he was hoping for a reward—”
“—but when we were about halfway there, and it was so—there—”
“—so bright and big and intriguing—”
“—I realized that I didn’t want him with me. I would rather investigate this by myself. So I turned him around. I just stopped, turned around, put my hands on his shoulders and turned him around, and said, ‘Never mind. You’re right. Let’s get out of here,’ and made him drive me straight home. (They usually do what you tell them to do if you start by telling them they’re right.)”
“Right,” I said. She kicked me.
“I began to visit the resort, by myself. I’d stop on my way to work, to watch it progressing. There was a lot still to do, as it turned out.”
“All the details.”
“Yes. There would be something new every day. The place really appealed to me. It had an ugliness about it, but it was the ugliness of excess, and that seemed something like glamour—”
“—in the context of a town that seemed to lack glamour entirely—”
“In a life that seemed to lack it. And to require it. I could imagine that I might meet a man there—”
“Of course.”
“Not someone from Babbington. Someone passing through.”
“Someone for whom Babbington would be just a stop on the way to somewhere else, somewhere better—”
“—and if he would take me away with him—when he took me away with him, as he would, as he must, if he were the right man—Babbington would turn out to have been just a stop on the way to somewhere else for me, too.”
[to be continued]
In Topical Guide 660, Mark Dorset considers Dangers, Hazards, Perils; and Glamour, Allure, Fascination from this episode.
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