“Chapter One. The Bride.” He held up the book then. “I’m reading it to you for relax.” He practically shoved the book in my face. “By S. Morgenstern. Great Florinese writer. The Princess Bride. He too came to America. S. Morgenstern. Dead now in New York. The English is his own. He spoke eight tongues.” Here my father put down the book and held up all his fingers. “Eight. Once, in Florin City, I was in his cafe.” He shook his head now; he was always doing that, my father, shaking his head when he’d said it wrong. “Not his cafe. He was in it, me too, the same time. I saw him. S. Morgenstern. He had head like this, that big,” and he shaped his hands like a big balloon. “Great man in Florin City. Not so much in America.”
“Has it got any sports in it?”
“Fencing. Fighting. Torture. Poison. True love. Hate. Revenge. Giants. Hunters. Bad men. Good men. Beautifulest ladies. Snakes. Spiders. Beasts of all natures and descriptions. Pain. Death. Brave men. Coward men. Strongest men. Chases. Escapes. Lies. Truths. Passion. Miracles.”
“Sounds okay,” I said…
– William Goldman, The Princess Bride
I think of this part of The Princess Bride every time I see Hagia Sophia. It has witnessed to so many memories that one might assume that it has grown numb to all the plots that humankind can master. Yet, I still believe that human nature is always capable of coming up with an element of surprise. Sometimes, I just think that Hagia Sophia is just looking down on us, observing, just like the Outsider does in the famous video game Dishonored; and it says, “I am older than the rocks this place is built on, and even I did not see that coming.”
Homework and articles are waiting. Gotta get back.