When I first met Adam he was picketing cigarette sales outside a convenience store. When I think of him now, I think of his bulging eyes, sweaty stubble, the smell of aniseed as he leaned in confidentially to whisper something he thought must be a secret, but back then he was clean shaved and suited and not prone to whispers.<\/p>\n
“You got a light?”<\/p>\n
I didn’t.<\/p>\n
“That’s great, just great. You know how many kids those mofo’s send into chemo. Pain and suffering. We need\u00a0to stop this. It’s the kids, we can’t let this happen.”<\/p>\n
The boardroom haircut and ostentatious shoes threw me off for a moment, a pause. His look contradicted his sheer earnestness and sense of comradery, like we’d just fought our way up the hill and now had to dislodge the machine gunners below. Which would have been the end of it, but as if reading my intention to walk off, this strange strange being flicked a cigarette into his own mouth and lit it.<\/p>\n
“Hypocrite.”<\/p>\n
“What do you mean?” as he blew the smoke into my eyes.<\/p>\n
I walked off. But I saw him again, and a few times watched him accosting other pedestrians. Some people walked off unperturbed, others were lit up by discussions and arguments, and sometimes when the crowds were awash around him, he would turn unprovoked into a raving madman, cursing and promising retribution.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When I first met Adam he was picketing cigarette sales outside a convenience store. When I think of him now, I think of his bulging eyes, sweaty stubble, the smell of aniseed as he leaned in confidentially to whisper something he thought must be a secret, but back then he was clean shaved and suited […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[159,90,114,106],"tags":[110,118,119],"metadata":[],"class_list":["post-772","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all-posts","category-blog-posts","category-story","category-the-traveller-is-the-journey","tag-fiction","tag-god","tag-madness"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1740,"url":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2010\/12\/04\/hide-and-seek-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":772,"position":0},"title":"Hide and Seek","author":"Pala","date":"December 4, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Hide and Seek\u00a0is the\u00a0third episode\u00a0of the franchisee show\u00a0Stargate Atlantis[1]. It first aired in July 2004. Spoilers?\u00a0Yes. Synopsis: An energy-feeding\u00a0shadow\u00a0is freed and a shield stone is found. They get rid of the shadow and can\u2019t use the stone any more.\u00a0Fin. DVD Commentary Instructions: (1) Print off this commentary. (2) Hire a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All Posts"","block_context":{"text":"All Posts","link":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/all-posts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":809,"url":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2016\/04\/19\/a-dialogue-on-choice\/","url_meta":{"origin":772,"position":1},"title":"A dialogue on choice","author":"Pala","date":"April 19, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Setting: Aristotle (the philosopher) and Alexander (the young, one day to be 'the great') are walking home from a speech by Protagoras the sophist. Alexander: Are the words of Protagoras true; that the ways of men are whimsical and at the mercy of the winds? Or perhaps it is true\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All Posts"","block_context":{"text":"All Posts","link":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/all-posts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2391,"url":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2011\/05\/05\/the-consolation-of-philosophy-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":772,"position":2},"title":"The Consolation of Philosophy","author":"Pala","date":"May 5, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Any man who has fallen never stood securely\u00a0(I poem 1) Whenever I think of the\u00a0variegation\u00a0of human lives I think of\u00a0Boethius\u00a0in his cell drafting and commiserating his own misfortune. Background: Boethius was born 476CE around the time that the last Western\u00a0Roman\u00a0Emperor\u00a0was being overthrown. In 493 the leadership changed again as the\u00a0Ostrogoths\u00a0took\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All Posts"","block_context":{"text":"All Posts","link":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/all-posts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":567,"url":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2016\/11\/12\/first-premise\/","url_meta":{"origin":772,"position":3},"title":"First premise","author":"Pala","date":"November 12, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Rashi hints that we should no longer justify our ownership of the land of Israel[I]. A person might have thought, \"The land has not been given to us\u00a0back\". But the verse says that there were disagreements between the shepherds, due (Rashi explains) to some of them being thieves by presuming\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "A Bashful Hope"","block_context":{"text":"A Bashful Hope","link":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/all-posts\/blog-posts\/a-bashful-hope\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2392,"url":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2011\/05\/27\/thomas-aquinas-five-ways\/","url_meta":{"origin":772,"position":4},"title":"Thomas Aquinas’ Five Ways","author":"Pala","date":"May 27, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Thomas Aquinas\u00a0spent the last twenty years of his life writing the famous\u00a0Summa Theologica; a guide to the\u00a0divine. The\u00a0Summa\u00a0included the\u00a0quinque viae, the \"five ways\" by which the existence of\u00a0God\u00a0can be proved. A few months before his\u00a0death, Aquinas stopped writing. When begged to continue he only said, \"All that I have written\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All Posts"","block_context":{"text":"All Posts","link":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/all-posts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1234,"url":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2016\/09\/29\/we-lived-in-a-farmhouse\/","url_meta":{"origin":772,"position":5},"title":"We Lived in a Farmhouse","author":"Pala","date":"September 29, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Editorial notes: The first part of this short autobiographical narrative refers to the time Shai lived in a debilitated farmhouse in the Brisbane area. I was there is June 2015 and the description of the farmhouse, its surroundings and inhabitants is spot on. The last paragraph is Shai\u2019s beautiful, yet\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All Posts"","block_context":{"text":"All Posts","link":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/all-posts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/padotI-cs","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=772"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=772"},{"taxonomy":"metadata","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/metadata?post=772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}