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09/04/11(Sun)13:21 No.16178965
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 To have said it forthright would have shown to your contemporary and, of more import, to yourselves, that you could only have done your surroundings a disservice; that they were unsettling was evident, and on that nothing needed be said at all -- that a pioneer, or a coachman, some years ago would ever have driven out such a road, and to push so wantonly through white pine and white mists on to midnight, was surely only an act of duty, or expediency -- no road led to nowhere. But that this man, in not finding himself near sight nor sound of any town, or any soul of worth; that he should or COULD pause, for even a moment, and not forsee a night with a sliver of moon, and the rattle of an orange coach-light pulling sickly through these twisted boughs is unthinkable, and for a simple workman to see this character put it far below statement by anyone so distinguished as to have your company.
And yet there was something there, hiding -- lurking, if you were the nervous sort. Beyond the wheel-edges of the muddied grooves, just beneath them, and so it hid just beneath the mind, the tongue. The Statesman caught it first, as he should; his pride and his quickness of thought were one in the same, and no disquiet could have been worth him holding his tongue.
"This one does." said he. "This road. Perhaps it is the only one, but this road does."
None wanted to ask, the courier least of all- But the courier had always availed himself to others, and to save them the tremble of their voices seemed noble.
"And what does it do?"
"This road leads to nowhere."
And only then could you have realized, that had only you listened; that I had TOLD YOU not to min-max out of Survival. |
