‘He says, an innocent.’
He had been an idiot who could hear the soundless murmur. She had been an innocent who, as an adult, could speak it.
‘Ask Baby what if an idiot and an innocent are close together.’
‘He says when they so much as touched, the innocent would stop being an innocent and the idiot would stop being an idiot.’
He thought, An innocent is the most beautiful thing there can be. Immediately he demanded of himself, What’s so beautiful about an innocent? And the answer, for once almost as swift as Baby’s: It’s the waiting that’s beautiful.
Waiting for the end of innocence. And an idiot is waiting for the end of idiocy too, but he’s ugly doing it. So each ends himself in the meeting, in exchange for a merging.
Lone was suddenly deep-down glad. For if this was true, he had made something, rather than destroyed something… and when he had lost it, the pain of the loss was justified. When he had lost the Prodds the pain wasn’t worth it.
What am I doing? What am I doing? he thought wildly. Trying and trying like this to find out what I am and what I belong to… Is this another aspect of being outcast, monstrous, different?
‘Ask Baby what kind of people are all the time trying to find out what they are and what they belong to.’
‘He says, every kind.’