Book One – Chapter 20

Yu did not know if any of that applied to him.
he did not know why he distracted himself with trash things and trash memories.
He did not want to know why he tried so hard to stay awake.
What he did know, however, that there was nothing in his passport that he had not seen before.

Yu snapped the passport shut with a sharp flick.     Rather, it was the exact opposite.
The Barnstream seal loomed on the cover,                  He had seen it far too many times in his life.
its dark imprint dominating the front,                                He had heard far too much about it.
with the familiar Coat of Undertellems beneath it.              If anything, Yu was sick of it.
                                                                                             He had long lost count of how many times he had been forced to describe the Barnstream Coat of Arms and explain its symbolism. It started with his his first year of school, when he had been selected to give a class presentation on the Barnstream seal. Tria had forced him to practice until he could recite that shit it in his sleep. He really could. Even now, in his sleep-deprived state, Yu could not help but remember. Well, Tria’s various suggestions on vocabulary and her recommendations for more elegant phrasing — they never stuck. But his own words always came back to him. There was nothing he could do about it. They were always right there, whenever he saw the Barnstream seal on some document or flag or building.