Page 177

By Jack Joseph Smith

over the hill. We always remember the times, when we crossed just beneath the thunder. What was the silence like on the other side? I remember now. It was something like this. Not peaceful, because you had just left the other. And not wild, because that was what you had decided to leave. What are they doing here? Maybe I should whistle through the whispers. If they are not speaking of me, they are then most certainly out of place. A jigger of a priceless gift could not bring pleasure to me in so unfilled moments when I laugh so unmistakeably at nothing. This fine glass she just gave me could, and maybe contain, the finest brandy I, myself have ever tasted. Certainly it is warm with my mind. I am watcying the many faces of myself disappear into vague resemblemence. What would I have to do, to remind myself of my decay into darkness. Nothing. This is not the place. I am joyess as the great mytholigical man. Ha ha. The ease I leave. Once my father and I were in great rapids that were flowing through rocks and turning giant trees aside. Their was a Indian guide with us, and I was the only one amaised in a bounty of fear. I was so very little, and Canada was a far off dream, I am remembering. Clark Gable was a glory to the loge, and everyone was waiting on its balcony for our return. When we went up and down in the lake I wanted to laugh, but knew both would be dangerous. so I held within, all emotions. That was a long time ago gliding on the lake of increased demention. I see no time in change, and I remember it as if it were now. So strongly so, that I relate to it as the consercration of my movements. Safe, safe, they are safe, was the cry, when we never did go under. Now it is there look, but who has experienced what has brought me here. They are so wrong. And I am so lost to admit it. I never which of thought, which of reason, never knew, and do not know, which way I am going. She is a pretty women, yes, her husband not a husbandman. Much a delicate, so sensitive with his fingers. Women love the other. The carpenter, the mathametician. Thick thumbs, used for the pointed, like a hunting dog uses

Original Scan

Page 177

AI Interpretation

GPT

Michael's party reverie turns from the silence after crossing a hill to the brandy glass, blurred faces, and a childhood memory of dangerous Canadian rapids with his father, where safety and fear were bound together.

The drunken room opens into an older lesson about danger, restraint, and the cry of being safe. Michael is not comforted by that memory; it sharpens his sense that no one in the room has experienced the path that brought him there.

Claude

At the party the narrator sips 'the finest brandy I, myself have ever tasted' from a glass she gave him and watches 'the many faces of myself disappear into vague resemblemence', then remembers riding 'great rapids' in Canada with his father and 'a Indian guide', holding in all emotion until the cry 'Safe, safe, they are safe'. He ends by comparing the woman's delicate husband with the men women love, 'The / carpenter, the mathametician'.

The childhood memory of danger survived by keeping still becomes the model for how he moves through the party now, 'the consercration of my movements'. His drift from brandy to rapids to the husband's 'Thick thumbs' shows a mind unable to settle, mixing self-mockery with loneliness and a raw sense that no one here has 'experienced what has brought me here'.