Snippet #8
Jul. 14th, 2003 10:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gilascaveBen Fraser
Canada, he tells himself firmly, is not a foreign country. Well, it is, obviously. He knows that. Just looking at the money would show him that in the event he somehow forgot.
But it isn't foreign, in the sense that people are speaking Tagalog or Swahili, or that families live in extended units ruled by a single patriarch who does all the negotiations for the family, right down to bartering for a husband for the five year old's future.
Although really, that sort of family structure does make sense. In a way. Ben concedes that it only really works if the patriarch is a nice man. But then, the same could be said for everything.
He realises he has wandered away from the subject once more, and before he forces himself back to it, he wonders why he's bothering. There is no one to explain himself to, no one interrupting him with impatient demands that he get to the point already. But he feels the momentary flinch of..not guilt, but something like it, as he realises he has once again wandered away from the point even by thinking about the fact he's wandered away.
He hears Ray's voice laughing at him, and he asks himself -- and this is the thing he was thinking about, after all -- why does his inner voice sound more and more like Ray?
The US and Canada are not so different, he tells himself. He knows he's lying, but it sounds better than trying to explain that, after all this time, they are still speaking foreign languages.
Canada, he tells himself firmly, is not a foreign country. Well, it is, obviously. He knows that. Just looking at the money would show him that in the event he somehow forgot.
But it isn't foreign, in the sense that people are speaking Tagalog or Swahili, or that families live in extended units ruled by a single patriarch who does all the negotiations for the family, right down to bartering for a husband for the five year old's future.
Although really, that sort of family structure does make sense. In a way. Ben concedes that it only really works if the patriarch is a nice man. But then, the same could be said for everything.
He realises he has wandered away from the subject once more, and before he forces himself back to it, he wonders why he's bothering. There is no one to explain himself to, no one interrupting him with impatient demands that he get to the point already. But he feels the momentary flinch of..not guilt, but something like it, as he realises he has once again wandered away from the point even by thinking about the fact he's wandered away.
He hears Ray's voice laughing at him, and he asks himself -- and this is the thing he was thinking about, after all -- why does his inner voice sound more and more like Ray?
The US and Canada are not so different, he tells himself. He knows he's lying, but it sounds better than trying to explain that, after all this time, they are still speaking foreign languages.