Chapter 43
I am stupid, am I not? What more can I want?
If you ask them who is brave? Who is true? Who is just?
Who is it they would trust with their lives?
They would say, Tuan Jim.
And yet they can never know the real, real truth.
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― Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim
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MIKHAIL
The villagers part warily as I land in the central square. Most of them greet me. A few pretend to have their attention fixated elsewhere. In front of the Temple, She-who-is smiles pitilessly down at me from her cubbyhole in the wall. I eye the brown stains which smear the temple beneath her feet. The villagers tried to wash off the c*****e, but I guess I didn't simply drop the enemy heads there, but smashed their brains into the bricks.
"I'm sorry," I say to the empty-eyed statue. "I probably shouldn't have done
