Billy: That's the thing about Narciussus, it's not that he's so fucking in love with himself, because he isn't at all, he fucking hates himself. It's that without that reflection looking back at him... he doesn't exist.

Innimellom danser de litt.
"Hør nå," sier hun, når refrenget i en gammel Bob Marley-låt nærmer seg.
Og Doppler hører.
If you are a big, big tree, synges det.
We are a small axe
Ready to cut you down
To cut you down
Maj Britt gestikulerer rytmisk underveis,
"if you are a big, big tree," synger hun, og peker på Doppler med den ene bambusstaven på you.
"We are a small axe," fortsetter hun, og peker inn mot seg selv med begge hender på we.
"Ready to cut you down," synger hun, og gjentar:
"To cut you down," og begge gangene denne siste linjen synges, mimer hun huggebevegelser på cut, og på down.
Når sanger er over, halter Maj Britt over til anlegget og får den til å begynne på nytt, og Doppler lar seg rive med. De synger og mimer begge to, under første refreng peker de på hverandre på you, men senere stiller de seg ved siden av hverandre og peker mot en usynlig tredjepart, mot alle svinene der ute som tror de har det så klart. Det er Maj Britt og Doppler mot resten av verden; hvis du tror du er så jævlig konge, og kan herse med andre mennesker eller med naturen, så kommer Maj Britt og Doppler og hugger deg ned, og hugger deg ned.

What about little microphones? What if everyone swallowed them, and they played the sounds of our hearts through little speakers, which could be in the pouches of our overalls? When you skateboarded down the street at night you could hear everyone's heartbeat, and they could hear yours, sort of like a sonar. One weird thing is, I wonder if everyone's heartbeat would start to beat at the same time, like how women who live together have their menstrual periods at the same time, which I know about, but don't really want to know about. That would be so weird, except that the place in the hospital where babies are born would sound like a chrystal chandelier in a houseboat, because the babies wouldn't have had time to match up their heartbeats yet. And at the finish line at the end of the New York City Marathon it would sound like war.

He had fallen in love with Hugo Alexander Timothy Cartwright the moment he laid eyes on him, when, as one of a string of five new arrivals, the boy had trickled into evening hall the first night of Adrian's second year.
Heydon-Bayley had nudged him.
"What do you reckon, Healey? Lush, or what?"
For once Adrian had remained silent. Something was terribly wrong.
It had taken him two painful terms to identify the symptoms. He looked them up in all the major textbooks. There was no doubt about it. All the authorities concurred: Shakespeare, Tennyson, Ovid, Keats, Georgette Heyer, Milton, they were of one opinion. It was love. The Big One.
Cartwright of the sapphire eyes and golden hair, Cartwright of the Limbs and Lips: he was Petrach's Laura, Milton's Lycidas, Catullu's Lesbia, Tennyson's Hallam, Shakespeare's fair boy and dark lady, the moon's Endymion. He was Garbo's salary, the national gallery, he was cellophane: he was the tender trap, the blank, unholy surprise of it all and the bright golden haze on the meadow: he was honey-honey, sugar-sugar, chirpy chirpy cheep-cheep and his baby-love: the voice of the turtle could be heard in the land, there were angels dining at the Ritz and a nightingale sang in Berkeley Square.
Adrian had managed to coax Cartwright into an amusing half-hour in the House lavs two terms previously, be he had never doubted he could get the trousers down: that wasn't it. He wanted something more from him than the few spasms of pleasure that the limited activities of rubbing and licking and heaving and pushing could offer.
He wasn't sure what the thing was that he yearned for, but one thing he did know. It was less acceptable to love, to ache for eternal companionship, than it was to bounce and slurp and gasp behind the fives courts. Love was Adrian's guilty secret, sex his public pride.

Det tok
tre dunk
å stave navnet
ditt i hjertet,

But of all pains, the greatest pain
It is to love, but love in vain

En tanke begynte så smått å dannes hos Erik. To dager senere da han la seg for å sove, og irriterte seg over lysene fra stereoanlegget som ikke slo seg av med mindre man trakk ut kontakten, noe man ikke kunne gjøre uten å stille klokken på nytt, skjønte han hva han måtte gjøre. Det var på tide å reise fra Oslo.

i miss you more than just a boy missing a girl, i miss you as a storm without wind, only rain, quiet rain

han kommer til Norge i september

Falling feels like flying
until you hit the ground.