The Djin leaned back and cocked an eyebrow at me. “Well, your mood seems to have improved, Imt I was under the impression you might want to talk about the Butterfly’s advice this afternoon.”
As soon as he spoke, my current bubble of levity popped and my earlier depression slammed into me like a fist. With out thinking I drained half the contents of my glass. “I don’t know, Kalvin. I’ve got a lot of respect for the Butterfly, and I’m sure he meant well, but what he said has raised a lot of questions in my mind . . . questions I’ve never really asked myself before.”
I topped off my glass casually, hoping the Djin wouldn’t notice how fast I was drinking the stuff. “Questions like . . . ?”
“Well, like . . . What are friends . . . really? On the rare occasions the subject comes up, all people seem to talk about is the need to be needed. All of a sudden I’m not sure I know what that means.”
Somehow, my glass had gotten empty again. I refilled it as I continued.
“The more I look at it, the more I think that if you really need your friends, it’s either a sign of weakness or laziness. You either need or want people to do your thinking for you, or your fighting for you, or whatever. Things that by rights you should be able to do for yourself. By rights, that makes you a parasite, existing by leeching off other people’s strength and generosity.”
I started to take a drink and realized I was empty. I suspected there was a leak in the glass, but set it aside, resolving to let it sit there for a while before I tried refilling it again.