remix
Convergences seem to snowball when I read to myself while my kids listen to an audiobook.
Just now, through my ears, this*:
“Amortentia doesn’t really create love, of course. It is impossible to manufacture or imitate love. No, this will simply cause a powerful infatuation or obsession. It is probably the most dangerous and powerful potion in this room — oh yes,” he said, nodding gravely at Malfoy and Nott, both of whom were smirking skeptically. “When you have seen as much of life as I have, you will not underestimate the power of obsessive love …”
And this** through my eyes:
“Shush!” I clamped my hand over her mouth and pulled her down next to me. Our knees rested uncomfortably against the large ceramic pot. The green stalks growing out of it were plastic.
Paul and his friends reemerged. He was chewing gum, and wearing shorts. This is what he would be like, I thought, if we never had anywhere to be, if we were always on vacation. I didn’t care what Laura thought. I wasn’t even in the mall anymore, I was somewhere else. I was in my forties, in my fifties. I was in the grocery store and bumping into Paul. We were exchanging phone numbers, two grown-ups. It happened all the time.
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* from J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
** from Emma Straub’s Other People We Married
