Somewhat slowly, he turned away, bent really low, and reached down into the dirt at his feet. Picking up a handful of dark brown earth in his right hand, he said, “This………this is the truth.” as he held his palm open. Then, looking around he noticed some light colored sand under the bench and picked up a handful in his left hand and said, “This……….this represents the lies”. Then he mixed them up with both hands, with some of the dirt and sand falling between his fingers as he blended the two together. Then he opened his hands in the shape of a bowl, showing the reporter how completely they had both come together, the grains of sand were still visible, as too were the smallest lumps of dirt, but they were essentially uniformly mixed.
“Now…….just using your fingers…” he said looking up to her face, “….separate them back into only the sand…..and only the dirt.”
“I wouldn’t be able to, it’s impossible……it would take forever……or at least a life time.” she answered.
“Welcome to my world.”
“There are facts that are so solid they will stay with us forever. There are facts that are like ghosts, appearing and disappearing according to whatever’s convenient. And there are facts that have been so hollowed out inside that they can’t support the weight of the argument for which they may be used, so they crumble to dust and are lost. Which of these facts we are forced to use or accept, and which are kept away from public consumption, can determine how we see a person, an event, or the world.”
Convergence Universal Truths
Soil and Sand
Facts
Passages from the novel Convergence
