[ Hey. He and the lizard exist in a state of harmonious indifference. It's a beautiful thing. ]
Anything you want to do. [ There's a smile in his voice, a little dry and a little playful. How does the Buddhist folk medicine go? Having trouble with human relationships? Try plants and animals. Hei's reasons for getting Pai a pet aren't that straightforward, true. But there's such a dearth of activities in the City, that she'd enjoy. She'll spend her time living like a middle-aged matron stuck in beleaguered post-war UK, if this carries on -- caught in a head-space where it rains all the time and there is a ration on sugar. At least, it seems that way to Hei -- a stale, drab, isolated existence. The air in the house might as well be suffused with some soporific drug -- even on the sunniest, freshest day, with all the windows open, all Pai seems to do at home is nap and loll. Sometimes they bake together, colorful sugary cakes with inches of icing, sheets of gooey cookies. He feels vaguely proud of those co-productions -- like they seem to indicate that she's still a normal girl, because isn't it the height of girliness, to manipulate sugar into shapes? Is supposed to have something to do with love. ]
[ It's absurd, of course. They eat most of what they've baked while watching TV, and there's never much to show for those lighter moments. Nothing worthwhile to offer her. That's the way it is. Nothing to offer. It fills him with pangs of sympathy and loneliness for her, like splinters cutting his palm. ]
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Anything you want to do. [ There's a smile in his voice, a little dry and a little playful. How does the Buddhist folk medicine go? Having trouble with human relationships? Try plants and animals. Hei's reasons for getting Pai a pet aren't that straightforward, true. But there's such a dearth of activities in the City, that she'd enjoy. She'll spend her time living like a middle-aged matron stuck in beleaguered post-war UK, if this carries on -- caught in a head-space where it rains all the time and there is a ration on sugar. At least, it seems that way to Hei -- a stale, drab, isolated existence. The air in the house might as well be suffused with some soporific drug -- even on the sunniest, freshest day, with all the windows open, all Pai seems to do at home is nap and loll. Sometimes they bake together, colorful sugary cakes with inches of icing, sheets of gooey cookies. He feels vaguely proud of those co-productions -- like they seem to indicate that she's still a normal girl, because isn't it the height of girliness, to manipulate sugar into shapes? Is supposed to have something to do with love. ]
[ It's absurd, of course. They eat most of what they've baked while watching TV, and there's never much to show for those lighter moments. Nothing worthwhile to offer her. That's the way it is. Nothing to offer. It fills him with pangs of sympathy and loneliness for her, like splinters cutting his palm. ]