They are sitting on the roof of their school, as usual. Joan is talking
about the latest thing to completely take over her life, as usual. And
Adam is listening to her calmly and quietly, as usual.
He marvels at her enthusiasm, her ardour, her belief in something that is so absolute her voice seems unstoppable. He tries valiantly to follow her train of thought, but it's like trying to keep a litter of hyperkinetic puppies in one place, so he just latches on to clips and phrases, making up his own logic to link the pieces together.
She is amazing to him, the way she lives and learns and tries, behaving as if there's something to strive towards, that it's not all meaningless, that her actions can change the world, or at the very least, Arcadia. He knows that she isn't just blindly optimistic, and that she doesn't view the world through rose-tinted glasses. He knows because she has changed his life.
Adam built walls around himself so he didn't have to see. If he couldn't look out, then he couldn't see that his mother was gone, and if his mother wasn't gone, then he couldn't possibly be the reason that she was gone. And maybe the walls made it hard for him to see other things, like the people who loved and cared for him, and the life that he still had even though hers was gone, but the walls kept him safe, and that was his world.
Then Joan came by, and she destroyed those walls, just like she destroyed his sculpture, and when the dust cleared, it wasn't wreckage around him, it was...
Adam snaps back to attention as Joan gushes about how beautiful her garden will be in the spring. She's learned an amazing amount about flowers, about their needs, the different species, what grows best in their climate, and he pictures her in overalls and a big straw hat, spade clutched in her gloved hands as she kneels and works on a plot of earth.
Joan talks about the beauty of flowers, but all Adam can think about is how beautiful she is. He knows how rare someone like Joan is, how she's the light in a million acres of dark. He knows that she is the real thing, that she is a seeker, and that she will do anything for what she believes in. He knows that she's a pure soul.
He knows all this, but he can't fit it into words to tell her; the thoughts mingle and jostle in his head, and there is just too much to be said--he has only one mouth. This is why he draws and paints and sculpts, so that he can say it all at once, and he just has to hope that somebody will understand it.
Joan's winding down, and she finishes her impassioned speech with a breathless "Well, what do you think?"
He looks at her, and he smiles, and he answers, "It sounds perfect."
He marvels at her enthusiasm, her ardour, her belief in something that is so absolute her voice seems unstoppable. He tries valiantly to follow her train of thought, but it's like trying to keep a litter of hyperkinetic puppies in one place, so he just latches on to clips and phrases, making up his own logic to link the pieces together.
She is amazing to him, the way she lives and learns and tries, behaving as if there's something to strive towards, that it's not all meaningless, that her actions can change the world, or at the very least, Arcadia. He knows that she isn't just blindly optimistic, and that she doesn't view the world through rose-tinted glasses. He knows because she has changed his life.
Adam built walls around himself so he didn't have to see. If he couldn't look out, then he couldn't see that his mother was gone, and if his mother wasn't gone, then he couldn't possibly be the reason that she was gone. And maybe the walls made it hard for him to see other things, like the people who loved and cared for him, and the life that he still had even though hers was gone, but the walls kept him safe, and that was his world.
Then Joan came by, and she destroyed those walls, just like she destroyed his sculpture, and when the dust cleared, it wasn't wreckage around him, it was...
Adam snaps back to attention as Joan gushes about how beautiful her garden will be in the spring. She's learned an amazing amount about flowers, about their needs, the different species, what grows best in their climate, and he pictures her in overalls and a big straw hat, spade clutched in her gloved hands as she kneels and works on a plot of earth.
Joan talks about the beauty of flowers, but all Adam can think about is how beautiful she is. He knows how rare someone like Joan is, how she's the light in a million acres of dark. He knows that she is the real thing, that she is a seeker, and that she will do anything for what she believes in. He knows that she's a pure soul.
He knows all this, but he can't fit it into words to tell her; the thoughts mingle and jostle in his head, and there is just too much to be said--he has only one mouth. This is why he draws and paints and sculpts, so that he can say it all at once, and he just has to hope that somebody will understand it.
Joan's winding down, and she finishes her impassioned speech with a breathless "Well, what do you think?"
He looks at her, and he smiles, and he answers, "It sounds perfect."