“Sometimes it seems like things go very fast, and sometimes they go slower than an inchworm.”
“Yes, honey, strange the way time moves, isn’t it? I can’t believe I’m not twenty or twenty-one or -two anymore. Years get lost, they fly by and you can’t remember them. This is when you get older, of course. I’m sure that now you can remember almost exactly when everything happened.”
“I like watching snakes crawl, the way their bodies fold and bend and curl up like a lasso, then straighten out.”
“Time works sort of like that, in concertina locomotion.”
“Is that a train?”
“No, Roy, it’s the way some creatures move, especially tree snakes. They kind of coil and partially uncoil and this motion propels them. I read about it in a nature magazine. You know how a concertina or accordion takes in and lets out air when it’s being played? Well, this type of snake looks like that.”
“Snakes can see where they’re going, can’t they?”
“Sure, and they use their tongues as sensors.”
“The car’s headlights are kind of our sensors.”
“I also read that blind people use hand gestures when they talk, the same as people who can see. Isn’t that interesting? It has something to do with the way human beings think.”
“I think Texas goes on forever.”
“We just take it a little bit at a time.”
“Like concertina locomotion.”
“Yes, baby. As soon as we’re east of Houston we’ll get a whiff of the bayou. You’ll know when we’re there with your eyes closed.”