Which age was known for which ornament
Not sure about this but I think that this means she was good and telling what object was popular during that time. If this is true its pretty ironic how she couldn't tell her daughter (at 12) isn't interested in staring at old junk
flame
maybe she describes her daughters hair as flame colored instead of red to describe the daughter as full of energy or passion. Junk sales and antiques aren't the most exciting places for children.
junk sales, antique fairs.
Its funny how these are the places where she looks for beauty. This also remind me of when parents drag their kids to boring places and think that they are both having fun.
remind me that I was in those rooms, with my child, with my back turned to her, searching—oh irony!— for beautiful things.
This seems like she is looking back with regret for taking her child for granted while she was still young and willing accompany her
nature
Maybe she is comparing nature to love because it is forever changing. Sunny days don't last forever.
1922)
Probably odd for a woman to write about this considering women were supposed fall in love and get married.
If you entreat me with your loveliest lie
I love you?
So make the most of this, your little day, Your little month, your little half a year,
Love never lasts. She is saying that it is only for a short time frame.
Nowhere?” “Like you.”
I think that when Aggie says Bill Peek is from nowhere, he means that device that he uses puts him in a false reality so that even though he is in the real world, he isn't really there. This is similar to when people are on their phones and walk into a tree. They aren't paying attention to their surroundings.
He was a captain in the Army. He had an old one of them . . . but said it still worked. He said it made her nicer to look at when they were doing it. He was from nowhere, too.”
The technology can even put someone in a different reality while they are making love. Social events are being corrupted with technology.
She had an innocence that practically begged to be corrupted. Bill Peek could think of more than a few Pathways boys of his acquaintance who wouldn’t hesitate to take her under the next boardwalk and put a finger inside her. And the rest. As the son of personnel, however, Bill Peek was held to a different standard.
The people who are considered to be advanced and superior are also the most inhumane.
“Well, I’m Bill Peek,” he replied, and felt very silly, like somebody in an old movie.
Doesn't feel comfortable introducing himself. He probably lacks social skills considering all he could possibly want to know about a person is downloaded onto his system.
You carry on, lad,” the old woman said. “We won’t get in your way. He can see it all, duck,” she told the girl, who paid her no mind. “Got something in his hands—or thinks he does.”
The boy while in the real world has a device that puts him in a different reality. It may be some sort of violent game.
Forty-nine years old, type O, a likelihood of ovarian cancer, some ancient debt infraction—nothing more. A blank, more or less. Same went for the girl: never left the country, eighty-five-per-cent chance of macular degeneration, an uncle on the database, long ago located, eliminated. She would be nine in two days. Melinda Durham and Agatha Hanwell. They shared no more DNA than strangers.
The device that the boy uses allows him to know everything about the people that he encounters.
a pair of actual glasses.
Is this suggesting that glasses aren't really used in the future?
This was all me now.
This confuses me. Does this drug finally give the recipient their own choice? What does he mean by this?
Verlaine, what’s the name of that one? The one where I give him an order and he obeys it?”
If he can't remember the name, it is probably rarely used. Shows that maybe Jeff was actually a valued part of the experiment because he had the strength to think for himself even when they didn't want him to.
See, that, to me, makes zero sense,” Abnesti said. “What good’s an obedience drug if we need his permission to use it?” “We just need a waiver,” Verlaine said. “How long does that shit take?” Abnesti said. “We fax Albany, they fax us back,”
This shows how even though it looks like the people in the experiment have power, they really don't. If they refuse they can easily be overwritten.
And sorry I shoved you.”
I find it funny how he apologizes for shoving Jeff but not for leading a woman to her death and forcing Jeff to describe it.
Are you kidding me?” Abnesti said. “What now?” Verlaine said. “What do I—” “Are you fricking kidding me?” Abnesti said.
If she was alive, why are they reacting like this? I am thinking that she did die and the lied in order for Jeff to proceed in the experiment.
Jeff, stop crying. Contrary to what you might think, there’s not much data in crying. Use your words. Don’t make this in vain.”
Abnesti is very dedicated to his work and doesn't even have the ability to see that someone is is pain
That’s all just pretty much basic human feeling right there.”
It is normal to have sympathy for someone but not love them?
shadow of the valley of death?
refers to Psalm 23 in the bible
“Did we choose Rogan? Keith? No. We deemed your level of speaking more commensurate with our data needs.”
Abnesti is trying to bet him comply by making him feel special and valued.
where my legs became totally numb and yet I found I could still stand fifteen straight hours at a fake cash register, miraculously suddenly able to do extremely hard long-division problems in my mind.
This experiment suggests this laboratory experiment ways to control many aspects of a persons life not just their emotions.
Which Abnesti always made a point of not keeping locked, to show how much he trusted and was unafraid of us.
Abnesti probably leaves the door open in order for them to trust him and make them believe they have more power when the actually have none. He manipulates them a lot in this story.
Heather had fucked me three times. Heather had probably also fucked Rogan three times, since, in the name of design consistency, Abnesti would have given Rogan and me equal relative doses of Vivistif™.
This reminds me of the lab experiments in high school when they ask for constant variables. For a proper experiment everything must be equal.
Heather looked around for a sock, VeriTalk™ making one quite literal.
These drug really take away any free will that the person has. The remind me of robots who take every command literally.
noted that Rogan had a tattoo of a rat on his neck, a rat that had just been knifed and was crying. But even through its tears it was knifing a smaller rat, who just looked surprised.
I'm wondering if this tattoo is significant in anyway. Maybe it is suggesting that people in general hurt people even if they have experienced the pain themselves? Maybe this is the reason to creating the drug. To control the emotions of others in order to prevent conflict?
Suddenly the soldiers on both sides start fucking. Or, at low dosage, feeling super-fond. Or say we have two rival dictators in a death grudge. Assuming ED289/290 develops nicely in pill form, allow me to slip each dictator a mickey.
This must be some type of lab under the authority of the Government if they suggesting something like this that would effect the would from a global aspect
I guess I was sad that love could feel so real and the next minute be gone, and all because of something Abnesti was doing.
Another example of a Scientist playing God. This is very similar to what Alymer was doing.
Well, hold on
Jeff doesn't want to the feelings that he has for Rachel like he did for Heather.
I had the memory of fucking Heather, the memory of having felt the things I’d felt for her, the memory of having said the things I’d said to her.
The reuse of the word memory shows how the drugs controlled all the emotion and when it is out, there isn't any love between the two, just the memory of the emotion.
We shook hands.
Shows no emotional attachment to the other person whereas a hug or kiss would show some residual feelings.
“Acknowledge,”
Their way of having "control" over the experiment is to authorize the drugs before they pump into their body. This is done by saying "Acknowledge"
How could we not have seen it, how cute the other one was?
The drug fabricates sexual arousal. Does this suggest that they are incapable of love without drugs?
It made you just want to lay out there and catch rays and think your happy thoughts. If you get what I mean.
You can see the difference in his ability to describe the beauty in the garden without the Verbulance drug
recognizes her only when her property can be made profitable to it.
This statement reveals that during this period, women only had value when they had a husband and that it must have been very hard to survive in the world without a man by her side.
This hideous murder accomplished, I set myself forthwith, and with entire deliberation, to the task of concealing the body.
When killing Pluto, his first reaction was to cry yet for his wife, his first reaction is how to hide the body.
I slipped a noose about its neck and hung it to the limb of a tree; — hung it with the tears streaming from my eyes, and with the bitterest remorse at my heart
People usually have remorse after the deed is done. If he knew it was wrong why was he still doing it?
My original soul seemed, at once, to take its flight from my body; and a more than fiendish malevolence, gin-nurtured, thrilled every fibre of my frame.
This sentence shows how alcohol when used in excess can change a person from being as nice as his younger self into someone abusive.
For Pluto, however, I still retained sufficient regard to restrain me from maltreating him
Why was Pluto the only exception to Poe's wrath? What made him so special?
regarded all black cats as witches in disguise
This superstition predicts unfortunate events in the future of this text
My tenderness of heart was even so conspicuous as to make me the jest of my companions
He was an outcast from his peers due to his compassion towards animals