Talking of metaphors for black and white, for last year's "author's tea" at Midland Elementary, ten-year-old Primus wrote a description of the night. It contained a line that described the stars blazing like diamonds in a sky that was as black as coal.
And it occurred to him that both substances, diamond and coal, which he had selected because of their extreme contrasts of brightness and darkness, are actually variant forms of the same element, our prime constituent carbon.
Now I could probably reflect for hours on the deeper implications of that observation and its Manichean relevance to human nature and the cosmos and whatever lies beyond, but I have to go food shopping with all three boys in tow, because the mem-sahib has skipped town for the weekend. And anyway, it makes my head hurt. So feel free to take it and run with it.
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