Softly, Softly, to Catch a Monkey

Well. It has been a while since I finished a chapter. Chapter 8 has 15 pages and 4500 words. There isn't all that much to say about it. Lots of flashback and dialogue, as usual. It doesn't feel all that special. A few good lines. That's about it. It is called "For How Life Should Be." Here is an interesting little excerpt.

“Why,” the grin pulsed like the pain of a migraine in strobe lights, “that was exactly the attitude of the late Mr. Adams—he put that belief into practice. You adopted it and have continued to enforce it. You now naively ask me to the same.” The blood vessels screamed in agony as they dilated. “California seceded because we do not entertain such thoughts. Terrorist groups have the right to—” 

“Damn it, Davidson! Listen to yourself!” The vessels burst, and suddenly Ralph’s voice broke with sadness. “Look around you. San Francisco has been reduced to this,” his hand trembled as he borrowed a Davidsonian gesture, “because of a terrorist attack. How can you possibly say that they have the right to level a city, to wreak such hell upon a country?” 

“How can you say that they haven’t such a right?” 

Ralph thought briefly of how Mark would answer such a question. He would say that one’s rights must not come at the expense of others’ basic rights to life, liberty, and property; he would say that one’s rights must not come at the expense of others’ basic rights to life, liberty, and property; he would say that, though might does often make right, rights are always right; he would say that terror and fear should not have to be endured by a people. The disjointed thoughts rolled around his hollow skull. But what would he say? He, Ralph, did not follow thoughts to their logical conclusions. He did not think linearly, not did he think that right and wrong followed logic per se. There was right, and there was wrong, plain and simple, clear as night and day. His thoughts were scattered and wild, his judgment seemingly arbitrary. Even the order that he had once believed to rule the cosmos had been arbitrary and black and white. His philosophy of chaos, too was just as clear cut. What would he now say to such a question? He would not follow the path of logic. He would say, in a faint echo of despair, “Murder isn’t right.”

“And you are just as entitled to that belief as murderers are to their creed."