Make it sound. Sounding is being, and he must be other than some slight linguistic variation of me. He’s from there but not from there. He’s a late arrival and they get him. They came of age together. They welcomed him in despite his streaks of otherness, streaks they ascribe to personality more than birthplace. He’s always been different, always been handled. There in the center of the country. He has become entangled with it. He’s everything and nothing and his negligence killed its soul. That’s the fucking feeling to grasp, the voice to let speak. He slipped up, lost track, and they paid the price. He doesn’t want their forgiveness.

It’s causality. It’s knowing that each event can be causally explained, though sometimes it’s hard to posit causal connections between one event and the seemingly related others. It’s Jungian af. A, B, C, etc. And it’s hard for them to comprehend how these are not serial events but might be, how they’re completely independent but forever interrelated.