(eng) Josiah Bancroft - Books of Babel 01 by Senlin Ascends

Author:Senlin Ascends [Ascends, Senlin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

“The truth, when finally told, will often sound strange, while a lie is so often familiar.”

- Everyman’s Guide to the Tower of Babel, V.IV

With their heads drawn so close that they looked like conjoined twins, Ogier and Senlin plowed a way toward North Port. They skirted the agents who prowled among the bathers scrabbling about the perfectly curved shoreline. They didn’t dare run. Brass music brayed from an unseen bandstand, the piccolo rising shrilly over the joyless band. The afternoon sun no longer dazzled, but seemed rather like a scaly disease that scabbed the tourists and blighted the pastel hotels. The Fountain vented steam like a factory stack. A girl selling oranges from her apron, still years from womanhood, was trying to evade a cotton-headed, lecherous gentleman who tried to pinch her hips and stroke her hair. The girl dropped the corners of her apron, letting the oranges fall and bounce and roll underfoot as she made a nimble escape. Senlin thought of his own students for the first time in weeks. The memory seemed like a fable: an ancient and unsophisticated ideal. He used to occasionally dream of bringing his class to the Tower of Babel on a grand field trip. Now he couldn’t imagine anything more specious.

Through it all, Ogier spoke as if he was reciting a well-rehearsed tale, as if Marya’s story had occupied his heart and mind for weeks.

And so it had been.

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