First there was Edmund, begging for his freedom.<\/p>\n
Then there is Emily.<\/p>\n
They pass in the halls. Tom sees her eyes. He shudders at what he sees in them.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t help you!\u201d Tom snaps. He flails a hand in her direction.<\/p>\n
He is angry because he feels guilty.<\/p>\n
Then he stalks away.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of them, \u201d he mutters. \u201cEveryone. Why? Why can\u2019t people just be happy being whatever my hat turns them into? Why must everything be so complex?<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n Tom stalks into Saul.<\/p>\n \u201cYou!\u201d he says.<\/p>\n Saul hangs his head.<\/p>\n \u201cYou want to be re-hatted, \u201d he says, \u201cDon\u2019t you.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cUm,\u201d says Saul.<\/p>\n \u201cYou are not satisfied with being one thing,\u201d says Tom. \u201cYou would rather be no things, maybe. Or 1*i things. You cannot appreciate what it is that you have.\u201d<\/p>\n Cheryl stops in the halls. She looks at them.<\/p>\n \u201cStop it,\u201d she says. \u201cTom, you are having a terrible idea.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBah!\u201d he says. \u201cI can recognize my own bad ideas.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut you still do them \u2014\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI am a prisoner of my circumstances,\u201d Tom concedes.<\/p>\n As it was written, so shall it be.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" First there was Edmund, begging for his freedom. Then there is Emily. They pass in the halls. Tom sees her eyes. He shudders at what he sees in them. \u201cI can\u2019t help you!\u201d Tom snaps. He flails a hand in her direction. He is angry because he feels guilty. Then he stalks away. \u201cAll of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3399,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"series":[50],"class_list":["post-5628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-vidars-boot-chapter-5","series-vidars-boot"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/Hat_1_blankbg.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5628","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5628"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5628\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6072,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5628\/revisions\/6072"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5628"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fseries&post=5628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}