Mid-morning. Busy day coming up as there are a number of errands and chores to be completed before heading south. Later, you raked one more time as the last city leaf collection is Wednesday. Stopped by the doctor’s so Carol could get her flu shot, then Olive Garden for lunch. Hallmark, Target, and Carol’s salon shop for trip necessities.
You have a second conversation between sexual encounter one and two. Here it is:
***
How would it really be, asked Salamon, if we met with someone who had killed our parents or grandparents?
This is a problem, thought Sophia. We have been thinking the Dead would unite to find a way home, to Earth, back to the Living. She mumbled, “I would imagine this kind of thing has been resolved,” but further within her doubts were beginning to compound.
“Like it is resolved within our own culture?” asked Salamon. “People avoid others or ignore them. You ostracize your enemy as others do you. We can always disappear in such situations and do. Avoidance. How is that going to work if we Dead have to unite on a common front?”
“This is painful to think on, Salamon. Fratricides. Incest. Premeditated murder. People spend most of their time speculating what was going on in the perpetrator’s mind. Then floods of anger and vengeance for lack of justice.”
Salamon chuckled darkly and commented, “It appears there is no divine justice here, at least not amongst our own cultural tribes.”
“We are here in Elysium. Where are the other Greeks? Are they in Tartarus? Is this the division?”
“Then we unite with other Dead who are as we are, the good, the considered heroes of the culture. The evil in each civilization is banished. That is how it seems,” responded Salamon.
“Divine Justice then is swift and without retribution either way. We each, as we are, are satisfied with our friends, neighbors and acquaintances in this place.” Sophia, thus satisfied, added, “We have common ground in Justice.”
Surprised by her positive tone, he asked, “All the Dead?”
She responded knowingly with a smile, a raised eyebrow, and a sparkle in her eye, “I should think.”
***
I am taken back by this short conversation. I thought it would be different, more somber and meticulously deliberate. Justice popped up. Who would have thought. I have definitions somewhere in all these notes.
Not needed at this time, orndorff. These characters are not that Dead. Post. More later. – Amorella.
Took time to watch a drama, a crime gone amiss, “Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead”, on Sundance. Carol is just coming in from her appointment and it is late afternoon. You captured a splice of a NY Times Review that fits your thoughts on the film.
“[Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead] from a script by Kelly Masterson, is a chronicle of destruction — physical, spiritual and moral. That most of the victims and most of the perpetrators are members of a single family gives the story some of the suffocating fatalism of an ancient tragedy. But the workings of fate figure far less in the narrative than bad choices and unlucky accidents. The evil in this world arises not out of any grand metaphysical principle, but rather from petty, permanent features of the human character: greed, envy, stupidity, vanity. There are no demons on display, just small, sad, ordinary people. The filmmakers rigorously tally the results of their sins, minor lapses made monstrous by the failure of love and the corruption of ambition. Simple, familiar desires — for money, sex, status, respect — end in murder.” Review by A. O. Scott, NYTimes, 26 October 2007.
***
I don’t think I ever remember hearing about this film, but it pretty much hits on the simple inherent problems conjured by our flaws in human character. Bad choices and unlucky accidents would seem to be the easiest cases of injustice to let go of if one were dead. Everyone, no matter how high herorhis moral character may be, can make bad choices and be fallen by unlucky accidents.
You are wondering about the differences between desire and ambition, where the sins are consciously understood yet greed or envy or vanity takes over anyway.
Synonyms for desire: wish, want, crave, covet
Synonyms for ambition: aspiration (ennobling), pretension (false pride?).
What desires and ambitions are in these two characters? Personal flaws/weaknesses come out in third discussion? What do you have in mind for the third discussion, Amorella?
A simple disagreement turned to argument over the worth of Mario, what motivates his character? Is there a flaw in it? And, of course neither see the same flaw in themselves for a bit of the dark humor. How’s that for something to think on? – Amorella.
I suppose, though it seems to me Kassandra might be a better choice.
Why is that?
I thought that Sophia would verbally attack Kassandra because Sophia knows Salamon has slept with Kassandra and likes her well enough, so she might want to find out who Salamon likes better, Kassandra or herself, thus an argument would raise the emotional stake.
By the same token, orndorff, Salamon might be thinking the same of Mario, and he may want to know who Sophia really favors.
I hadn’t thought that. I wonder why I took the woman’s perspective here? Do I do that often? Is it easier for me to think like I think a woman would think than like I, as a man, think? This is a weirdness thought.
Post, old man. More later, or tomorrow, whichever comes first. – Amorella.
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