Thursday, January 18, 2001

The Cold


I must resort to quoting one of the great fictional bastards of our time: I don't like killing people. I want to kill these people.

Reading the newspaper had reduced me to gibbering fury. I was ready to put my fist through a wall—or through someone's head. Instead, I scooped my daughter up in my arms and we continued our reading from James and the Giant Peach, a catch creeping into my voice even as I adopted a Tim Curry guffaw for the Centipede's lines, my insides twisting into knots with the paired, reversed spirals of bottomless rage and boundless love. But the rage is also love: love turned sideways, but love for all that.

There are times when parenthood is a thorn in the side, and times when it is a knife in the heart. Today I carry with me an ache that will not subside: despite this—because of this—I feel myself the luckiest man on earth.

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