“You two had a beautiful friendship. Maybe more than a friendship. And I envy you. In my place, most parents would wish the whole thing go away… And pray their sons land on their feet. But… I am not such a parent.” We rip out so much of ourselves to be cured of things faster that we go bankrupt by the age of thirty and have less to offer each time we start with someone new. But to make yourself feel nothing so as not to feel anything — what a waste! Have I spoken too much? Then let me say one more thing. It’ll clear the air. I may have come close, but I never had what you two have. Something always held me back or stood in the way. How you live your life is your business, just remember, our hearts and our bodies are given to us only once. And before you know it, your heart is worn out, and, as for your body, there comes a point when no one looks at it, much less wants to come near it. Right now, there’s sorrow, pain. Don’t kill it and with it the joy you’ve felt.”
I was in the winter of my life, and the men I met along the road were my only summer. At night I fell asleep with visions of myself dancing and laughing and crying with them. Three years down the line of being on an endless world tour and my memories of them were the only things that sustained me, and my only real happy times. I was a singer, not a very popular one, who once had dreams of becoming a beautiful poet, but upon an unfortunate series of events, saw those dreams dashed and divided like a million stars in the night sky that I wished on over and over again sparkling and broken. But I didn’t really mind because I knew that it takes getting everything you ever wanted and then losing it to know what true freedom is. When the people I used to know found out what I had been doing, how I had been living, they asked me why. But there’s no use in talking to people who have a home, they have no idea what it’s like to seek safety in other people, for home to be wherever you lie your hea...
To most people, Hans Hubermann was barely visible. An un-special person. Certainly, his painting skills were excellent. His musical ability was better than average. Somehow, though, and I’m sure you’ve met people like this, he was able to appear as merely part of the background, even if he was standing at the front of a line. He was always just there. Not noticeable. Not important or particularly valuable. The frustration of that appearance, as you can imagine, was its complete misleadence, let’s say. There most definitely was value in him, and it did not go unnoticed by Liesel Meminger. (The human child—so much cannier at times than the stupefyingly ponderous adult.) She saw it immediately. His manner. The quiet air around him. When he turned the light on in the small, callous washroom that night, Liesel observed the strangeness of her foster father’s eyes. They were made of kindness, and silver. Like soft silver, melting. Liesel, upon seeing those eyes, understood that Hans Hubermann...
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