Denying one's place in beautiful myths

I was finishing my breakfast of toast and coffee when Margaret slipped out from the cutlery draw. This is not an uncommon event but that she had not invited me in to share the space was. I mentioned this and she told me to stop being soft and finish my breakfast. Bessy seemed to be in on the act too as she emerged with a fork piercing her snout in what, Margaret told me, was a test of self-denial. The hound had wanted to pierce herself with the bread knife.

Felix tells me he spent many years training himself in self-denial to such an extent that he is no longer here. That seemed odd to me given that were drinking tea together but I didn't push it. I must have been talking to myself all these years.

George has never denied himself anything, so long as it added something to his beauty or to his character, he tells me regularly. I asked if that wasn't a bit selfish. He looked at me very severely and said that when there were so many people around on whom anything beautiful or character-building was wasted - and here he stared at me some moments - his behaviour was quite the opposite. He turned to do some filing and I wondered what it was that meant I didn't take advantage of beautiful and characterful things.

Cookie, thank goodness, was practising how to build myths from rubber gloves. I asked if there weren't already enough myths to go around but she said that this would be a sterile one that no-one would ever contaminate. I guess that means it will be a better one, somehow.

And that's why there will always be some space in the world for denying myths and recreating others for when we're not here. Or denying myths unless they make the world more beautiful or characterful. Or anything that seems useful at the time. Mm.