Friday, July 13, 2012

CHARACTERS REFLECT IN "TURNED LOOSE"

Brief characters' reflections from "Turned Loose" - The first paragraph is Todd Redding's; he's a weekly's owner - Next paragraph is a brief narrative referring to Mike Hancock, a mental patient - The last are from Helen Rice, a bisexual sculptor married to Gil Stephens ...

Things are falling apart all around me, Redding thought. Why did I let myself get pulled into this? He walked to the window and looked out. Two young men in long dark coats, black hair, faces streaked in black, walked by, looked into the window, waved with an abbreviated gesture, and continued on. Omens of evil, Redding thought. What else. He began to pace.
Stephens suggested they bring Hancock to his apartment for his medications. Rice said she’d stay with Redding, obviously distressed with his choices.
All these imaginations seeing it differently, she mused. We coalesce into a temporary consensus. Believe we proceed from there as if it were a potentially fixed proposition. Often without examining the fiber of the consensus. I don’t think Todd has it in him to see the transformation of his newspaper through. He’s going to bail out. Down from the Hill will be aborted. Then what for Gil, for Alicia. I’m only tangentially involved. My career is on track, and at my age, that’s a wonder. I’m still someone the university wants to keep around. Now, enterprises are playing with the notion of “strategic dynamism.” Long-term goals disappear as quick fixes take over. I could live 30 more years, it’s part of my heritage, the genetic mystery that codes the timing. Like Gil, his take a little different, I think the imagination rules. In ways people don’t fathom. I’m really glad I don’t have children. I’d be so fearful of what they’d face on this planet; what my imagination conjures will lie ahead.
She thought of the Moody Blues line from “Nights in White Satin”: “We decide which is right and which is an illusion.” Maybe in some cases. If we can figure out where we’re coming from.


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