Remembering that conversation, I understood the Furies, the Greeks’ Erinyes: why they were needed, why they seemed to have so little to do with guilt as we understand it, or with responsibility, or with fairness. Surely, as I stood there, my fault or not, the universe itself demanded vengeance, called for screaming birds flying at my head. I changed then. I lost affection for myself. I think that mattered, in the end.
- chartres, pp.76-77
soon after i copied out these lines, in late june, i decided i should bike around the county. but trying to make my way through the marsh on 215 a number of territorial terns circled above me, tried to drive me away, screamed and dove at my head.
