1.
[Terry's handwriting is more rushed and haphazard than usual, as though he's writing too quickly for his brain to keep up.]


[Private]
Anthony is not impressed by my mission to fetch my Dante. Well, I can't honestly say that I blame him, but I do wish he weren't so bloody obvious about how much he disapproves. I know that they aren't particularly important to anything at all, but I needed them, so they become important to me. And I won't lie. I did want to see Mum. I suppose she's doing as well as can be expected, without Dad, I mean. In the past couple years, I've rather wanted to think that she'd do well without him, just because I thought that I would be better without him, and it made it easier to be upset with him, but she needed him. Well. Maybe not needed him, but she certainly misses having him. I couldn't tell how much of it was missing him and how much of it was being upset over Jacob, since, even if he was vile and horrible to me, he was still her son, which means she probably feels beholden to mourn him more than is entirely necessary.

If there's a Hell, I wonder: where's Dad? Jacob is with those who did violence unto others, but Dad -- he might get to Purgatory, but there's still the issue of where in Purgatory he landed himself.
[/Private]



[Michael]

So, let's say, hypothetically, that I were to ask you to buy the ingredients for a sleeping potion sometime soon. Would you be inclined to do so?

[/Michael]


[Mistakenly left public.]
"... You shall leave everything you love most:
this is the arrow that the bow of exile
shoots first. You are to know the bitter taste
of others' bread, how salty it is, and know
how hard a path it is for one who goes
ascending and descending others' stairs ..."
-- Paradiso, XVII (55-60)

(True enough. Dante doesn't know just how much he speaks for everyone in exile; but bread is asked for in various petitions to the Divine, does he just not consider this? Probably not. Salt is interesting. Salt heals bad water [see Elisha, 1 Kings 2]; salt is good [see Mark 9:50 -- "Salt is good: but if the salt have lost his saltness, wherewith will ye season it? Have salt in yourselves, and have peace one with another."]; salt is grace [see Matthew 5:13 and Colossians 4:6 -- "Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men." and "Let your speech be alway with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man."]. Salted bread, though.

“Let yourself be open and life will be easier. A spoon of salt in a glass of water makes the water undrinkable. A spoon of salt in a lake is almost unnoticed.” -- Prince Gautama Siddhartha. Not entirely relevant, though.)

Halfway along this journey of our life
I awoke in wonder in a sunless wood,
For I had wandered from the path that does not stray.
...
The very thought of it renews my fears,
For death itself can hardly be more harsh
Than is the memory of that monstrous place!
...
What was the manner of my coming there?
I cannot truly say, I was so full of sleep at
the point where I abandoned that one true path.
-- Inferno, I (1-12)

(Been there, done that.)

(Inferno VII is a problem. What is seven? Seven is divine, seven is responsibility, seven is nominally a marker of cognizance when you're still a child. Childishness. Selfishness. Prodigality. To be prodigal is to be selfish just as much as to hoard is to be selfish. Thus, equated; get the same level. Have I been selfish? Yes, very.)

My profile looks a bit like Dante's, doesn't it? More graceful, I guess.