Re: The Stowaway/The Terror
Charlie wasn't polite. His ma had tried with his manners but she didn't have the sway she had when Charlie had been small enough to have dirt on both bare knees. His dad had tried with the back of his hand, but merry impudence was Charlie's stock in trade and he didn't care a goddamn for manners. He cared that the guy had smashed into the compartment looking like a nightmare out of a very bad dream and that he'd interrupted what, to the guy's account had to be closest thing to genuine rest going on all along the train. Charlie had been faking it, but Charlie hadn't given that away until the last.
"You're off your rocker," Charlie said with total assurance. The guy was mad, off his box. Governments ran out of money, they couldn't organize a piss up in a brewery, they took money away from hardworking people and sold the country down the river according to his dad. Charlie had listened to him his whole life, until he got old enough to see the cracks his dad had papered over, how life had gotten to him like damp seeping through the walls. "People aren't governments. People are people. People disappeared but the train stopped because they disappeared."
He sat all the way up and fished for his boots. "What would they go on practicing for?"