The SS Blessed Pensioner, having made an unscheduled detour into Drinking Horse Gorge, is compelled to make a further unscheduled stop
-Lo Pan, most wise and most generous, when will the people be free?
-Freedom is not possible as long as belief in individuals or collectivities exist.
-No, I mean the hostages, when will you let them go?
-If neither individuals, nor collectivities exist who can I be said to be holding? If freedom is not an impossibility, and there is no reason it should not exist, how can things be other than free?
-I mean the hostages from the boat. Is it your plan to eventually let them go?
-Chance and design are simply words we use to describe the same thing depending on how we are feeling. So it makes no difference whether I make the wisest choice, the kindest choice, the most appropriate choice, or if we were to throw dice for the souls on the boat, like in Coleridge’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner”.
-These dice are labeled in Chinese.
-Yes, I know. Oh, look: today you are not lucky.
And a thousand slimy things
Lived on;and so did I
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