Newt's painting was small and black and warty.
It consisted of scratches made in a black, gummy impasto. The scratches formed a sort of spider's web, and I wondered if they might not be the sticky nets of human futility hung up on a moonless night to dry.
Newt remained curled in the chair. He held out his painty hands as though a cat's cradle were strung between them. 'No wonder kids grow up crazy. A cat's cradle is nothing but a bunch of X's between somebody's hands, and little kids look and look and look at all those X's...'
'And?'
'No damn cat, and no damn cradle.'
--
Her eyes were closed.
I was flabbergasted.
She was great.
She improvised around the music of the Pullman porter's son; went from liquid lyricism to rasping lechery to the shrill skittishness of a frightened child, to a heroin nightmare.
--
Tiger got to hunt,
Bird got to fly;
Man got to sit and wonder, 'Why, why, why?'
Tiger got to sleep,
Bird got to land;
Man got to tell himself he understand.
'What's that from?' I asked.
What could it possibly be from but The Books of Bokonon?'
'I'd love to see a copy sometime.'
'Copies are hard to come by,' said Castle. 'They aren't printed. They're made by hand. And, of course, there is no such thing as a completed copy, since Bokonon is adding things every day.'
Little Newt snorted. 'Religion!'
'Beg your pardon?' Castle said.
'See the Cat?' asked Newt. 'See the cradle?'
when i was eleven years old, i got the mumps, around the time of my final exams. i was exempted from those exams, based on my past performance; they never really fail you in school. however, however, i cried and cried and cried because everyone else was studying and i wasn't.
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