The Wall

Sometimes you can take strength from the thought that you have no choice.

We stood for a moment and looked at the island and I imagined what it had once been like - beaches, gentle slopes, maybe a few houses down near the water. In living memory the sea floor below us was dry land. All drowned now. Part of the old drowned world.

A couple of minutes can have a big effect on how you see things.

I had never really thought about betrayal before; I knew the word but not the meaning. Now I knew. Betrayal was like tasting a liquid, the bitterest thing you've ever put in your mouth, a nd holding the taste just long enough to fully understand how repulsive it is, and then forcing yourself to drain the cup to the dregs.

Being a Defender was a personality people put on when they went to the Wall. Their non-Wall self was closer to their real self maybe. Or maybe not, I now think, maybe there isn't a real self, just different versions of us we wear in different settings and with different people.