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value system? Or because things that are important to you may not be important to me?" |
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Theodore shrugged and looked uneasily out over the water. "It's strange, real strange. We look so much alike, yet right now I could swear I don't even know you, that I've never known you. For that matter, I don't know why anything has turned out the way it has." |
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Inside, where small victories are won and cherished, Charlie felt the glow of his triumph. His scheme was working far better and far faster than he had ever dared hope. You're hooked, Theodore Frazier, he said to himself. You're stymied by the same archaic rationale that warped our grandfather's thinking and our father's as well. This family stuff is all a bunch of bullshit. Yesterday doesn't count; yesterday is the past, meaningless in the sense of what must be done. The only thing that matters is the present and what we do with it. Even tomorrow is not important, because you have no assurance that you will live to experience it. |
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Theodore turned away and walked slowly over to a straggly old pine, flanked by a monument that was tilted to one side by the tree's searching roots. He sat down on it and stared out at the last traces of orange-red in the distant western sky. |
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"When I look at you, Charlie, it's like I'm |
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