« This
is the kind of touch they like : folk art, archaic, made by women, in
their spare time, from things that have no further use. A return to traditional
values. »
« Thinking
can hurt your chances, and I intend to last. »
« Fraternize
means to beahve like a brother. Luke told me that. He said there was no
corresponding word that meant to behave like a sister. Sororize, it would have
to be, he said. From the Latin. He liked knowing about such details. The
derivations of words, curious usages. I used to tease him about being
pedantic. »
« The
tulips are red, a darker crimson towards the stem, as if they had been cut and
are beginning to heal there. »
« He
looks at me, and sees me looking. He has a French face, lean, whimsical, all
planes and angles, with creases around the mouth where he smiles. »
« Now
that she’s the carrier of life, she is closer to death, and needs special
security. »
« I
remember the smell of nail polish, the way t wrinkled if you put the second
coat on too soon, the satiny brushing of sheer pantyhose against the skin, the
way the toes felt, pushed towards the opening in the shoe by the whole weight
of the body. »
« we
are secret, forbidden, we excite them »
« These
bodies hanging on the Wall are time travellers, anachronisms. They’ve come here
from the past. »
« If
it’s a story I’m telling, then I have control over the ending. Then there will
be an ending, to the story, and real life will come after it. I can pick up
where I left off. It isn’t a story I’m telling. It’s also a story I’m telling,
in my head, as I go along. Tell, rather than write, because I have nothing to
write with and writing is in any case forbidden. But if it’s a story, even in
my head, I must be telling it ti someone. You don’t tell a story only to
yourself. There’s always someone else. Even when there is no one. »
« Something
has been shown to me, but wha is it ? Like the flag of an unknown country,
seen for an instant above a curve of hill, it could mean attack, it could mean
parley, it could mean the edge of something, a territory. »
« The
bathroom is beside the bedroom. It’s papered in small blue flowers,
forget-me-nots, with curtains to match. »
« I
think about the blood coming out of him, hot as soup, sexual, over my
hands. »
«
I cram both hands over my mouth as if I’m about to be sick, drop to my knees,
the laughter boiling like lava in my throat. I crawl into the cupboard, draw up
my knees, I’ll choke on it. My ribs hur with holding back, I shake, I heave,
seismic, volcanic, I’ll burst. Red all over the cupboard, mirth rhymes with
birth, oh to die of laughter. »
« Why
is it that night falls, instead of rising, like the dawn ? »
« I
breathe in the soap smell, the disinfectant smell, and stand in the white
bathroom, listening to the distant sounds of water running, toilets being
flushed. In a strange way I feel comforted, at home. There is something
reassuring about the toilets. Bodily functions at least remain democratic.
Everybody shits, as Moira would say. »
« In
my lap is a handful of crumpled stars. »
The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
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