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the puttering bird who pretends to be only passing by;
he was all haste

 
...like a Daedalus who’d never tried to take flight.
      Better to play the puttering bird who pretends to be only passing by, feigns fascination with some other errand, but arrives precisely when the need appears. But even when chances seemed to show up and she landed, lightly, on his shoulder, he had no patience for a route out that consisted of anything other than soaring — walking, for instance, instead of flying, learning to press on while parched, to stop for necessary rests along the road and “waste time” in order to arrive in one piece. He was all haste and when the frenzy ran out after a particularly draining campaign, after a day of canvassing that seemed mainly wasted, he went into a catatonic stillness so that she wondered, always, if he had a core, anything permanent behind the fevered ambition. Limits lit a rage in his heart.
      The electric ether above flickered out...

ex Joshua Hren, Blue Walls Falling Down (2024) : 147 : link

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author’s website : link
 

24 September 2025