A Straight Line Across the Courtyard

The twenty meters his body spent years skirting in an arc, Simon now crosses in a straight line. The author is precise to the point of formula: courage is being afraid and going anyway; fear is care for the future. Simon’s future is “scripted down to the last line”, with no room left for “later” — so there is nothing left to be afraid with.

Fearlessness of this kind is not strength but a symptom: it appears when a person has inwardly finished with life-as-it-is. People meanwhile “stop being people” — they become scenery. The same depersonalization that was inflicted on him for years now radiates outward from him.