The Eldest

My ma wrote the day before yesterday about the pillory. She threw me under the bus for cryin but she didn't mention her own welling up and choking on her breath now did she? Figures. See he was just hanging there by his limbs and we had been going around feeling so bad about ourselves. Made me feel quite guilty. Made me realize how lucky I was just to be able to move my neck a bit and use my legs. The flies were landing on his eyes and up his nose, he was dry as a bone and getting ugly in the sun. Poor old fella.

I don't feel so bad about us anymore. But when I see the baker's family I start to feel poor. They all have shoes, they've all got hats and none of 'em have the pink eye. The artist fellow who paints us in front of this old building square, he says these paintings are all about our "distinctive characteristics". It's about us, the French people, the real people, he calls us.