I began to ration my writing, for fear I would dream through life as my father had done. I was afraid I had inherited a poisoned gene from him, a vocation without a gift. ↗
You'll see a movie about someone you hate or someone you love. Will you see a movie about grandma making apple pies? No, you won't. Only if grandma has poisoned the neighbor or is suspected of poisoning the neighbor through her apple pies. ↗
Probably? So you're asking me to trust my life to steel wool and peanut butter?"
"Poisoned peanut butter."
"Cal, I don't care if it's nuclear peanut butter. ↗
That was after Napoleon died because there is still a controversy as to whether Napoleon was poisoned with arsenic. And the French say the British did it and the British say the French did it, but he died before the test for arsenic was available. ↗
People who treat other people as less than human must not be surprised when the bread they have cast on the waters comes floating back to them, poisoned. ↗
It's actually pretty complex, because there's two levels of reality in the narrative. One is what really took place, and the other is Spider's poisoned version of what took place. ↗