Mensonge bien gardé

This was no longer about getting an A on my project. It wasn't even about my naive belief that right and wrong should balance out in the end. This had somehow become about me, about when I was eleven and watched my grandfather die.I could have done something, but I didn't. I should have at least tried. Now, faced with the choice to act or to wait, I felt I had no choice.I had to act. Besides, what if there was no DNA on the fingernail? Then all the time spent waiting would have been wasted.

An incredible sense of lightness filled me as I brushed the snow off the windshield. A young couple entered the restaurant, releasing a wave of warm air fused with the scent of fresh-baked goods. The aroma sailed on a light breeze and swirled around my head. It caused to pause and remember something Carl had told methat heaven could be here on Earth.

I scooped snow into my bare hand and watched as it melted in my palm. I felt its coldness against my warm skin and studied the crystalline flakes as they changed into water droplets that trickled down my wrist, evaporating into another existence. I closed my eyes and listened to the music of the breeze as it hummed through the nearby pine trees, punctuated by the chirp of some chickadees hidden in the needles.

I drew in a breath of crisp December air and stood perfectly still, savoring the feel, the sound, and the smnell of the world around me, sensations that would have passed by me unnoticed had I never met Carl Iverson.

"But it also means that this is our heaven. We are surrounded every day by the wonders of life, wonders beyond comprehension that we simply take for granted. I decided that day that I would live my life-not simply exist. If I died and discovered heaven on the other side, well, that'd be just fine and dandy. But if I didn't live my life as if I was already in heaven, and I died and found found only well...I would have wasted my life. I would have wasted my one chance in all nothingness, of history to be alive."

"His sergeant put a gun to his head. He was willing to die rather than rape that girl. That's what the story is about. How could that man in Vietnam be the same man who killed Crystal Hagen? If he's re ally a rapist and a murderer, he would have given in to the dark side when he was in Vietnam. "
"You think he's innocent?" Lila asked, her tone more inquisitive than condemning.
"I don't know," I said. "I'm starting to. I mean, it's possible, isn't it?"

"Can't you feel it, Virg? Can't you feel things slipping?"
"Feel what slipping, Hoss?"
"I don't know how to explain it," Carl said. "It's like every time I go into that jungle I feel like I'm standing on a line, a line I know I shouldn't cross. And there's this screaming in my head, like some banshee whirling around me, pulling me, taunting me to step over that line. I know if I cross it, I become Gibbs. I'd say fuck 'em, they're just gooks, so fuck 'em all."
"Yeah," Virgil said. "I know. I feel it, too. The day Levitz bought the farm, I wanted to lay waste to every butter head in the province."
"Levitz?"
"The guy that got cut in half by that Betty.
"Oh...that was his name?I didn't know."
"But Hoss, once you go there you don't come back," Virgil said.
"That sixteen-year-old kid on Grandpa's porch, watching the sunrise, won't be there no more." "Sometimes I wonder if he's there now."