The Center Could Not Hold...

Introduction This is a work of fiction. Strictly fiction. It is set in Zaphra, a mountain-ringed city with a glass-roofed library, stone-paved roads, and a palace on an eastern hill. Its neighbors — the Lowland riverfolk, the Hill Tribes, the Spice Kingdoms of the East, the City of Marble — are imagined. King Lokmon is invented. He is an archetypal ruler, not a historical figure, not a religious figure. No real people, tribe, nation, or faith is depicted or critiqued here. Any resemblance is coincidental. Lokmon was not a weak man. At twenty, when the council asked each prince, “What do you want most?” he answered, “Understanding.” Under him, Zaphra became luminous. Roads were cut through mountains. A library was built whose roof was glass so scholars could read by constellations. Storehouses were full. Caravans came from twelve nations to hear him speak for five minutes. People said, “Our king has a single north.” Then prosperity brought its quiet peril. When external enemies are subdued, internal negotiations begin. Lokmon’s first compromise was not appetite. It was diplomacy. A treaty sealed by marriage. A daughter of the Lowlands offered a river-song in exchange for a trade route. He told himself a man could bring another world into his house and not bring its worldview into his heart. That was the first arrow that did not point north. What follows is not a condemnation of love across cultures. Zaphra learns much from its many doors — water storage from the Lowlands, medicine from the Spice Kingdoms, sculpture from Marble, terracing from the Hills. The children speak five languages before ten. The table holds ten breads. Cosmopolitanism has gifts. But every gift arrives with an invoice. Culture is never only cuisine and costume. It is ideology, habit, doctrine, the quiet definition of what is sufficient, honorable, true, permissible. When you bring a culture into your house, you inherit its compass. There is no graphic violence, no erotic detail, no hate speech. Love is described through emotional, cultural, and philosophical merging, never physical spectacle. Its tone is gentle but firm, prestigious but accessible, literary but not academic, with dramatic tension that holds you. Its villain is not a woman, not a tribe. Its villain is unexamined choice and the absence of a center. Ask the only question that matters before you open another door: What north will my children inherit when my compass is gone? Act I — The Crown of a Single North [Drama] [LIGHT UP: The great court of Zaphra. Glass roof catches stars. ELDERS lean forward. Two traders argue over a single goat, each telling half a story with perfect conviction.] ELDER: Who speaks truth? LOKMON (20, clear-eyed, not loud): Neither tells the whole. Both tell the half that favors them. The goat was borrowed in dry season, not given. Return two goats, not one. And let both drink from the same well tomorrow, so they must see each other while drinking. [Gasps. The traders, shamed and relieved, bow. This is not cleverness. This is coherence.] Under him, Zaphra becomes luminous. He cuts roads through mountains as if they were soft. He builds a library with a glass roof so scholars can read by constellations. He fills storehouses. He establishes courts where even the poorest can be heard. Caravans come from twelve nations to hear him speak for five minutes. Not because he is loud, but because he is clear. He lives by a code that fits in one sentence, taught to every child: Guard your center more than your treasury. Greeting becomes creed: “May your heart stay true.” True to what? True to the covenant that made them a people — honesty, work, fidelity, restraint, a single north. People say, “Our king is not diluted. His heart has one north.” That singularity is his capital. Investors trust him. Mothers want sons like him. The palace has one kitchen, one calendar, one greeting. Simplicity is not poverty. It is clarity. Prosperity, however, has its own peril. When external enemies are subdued, internal negotiations begin. When storehouses are full, question changes from “How do we survive?” to “How much can we experiment with?” Boredom is more dangerous than siege. COUNCILOR 1 (urgent): Majesty, the Lowlands offer their daughter Leya to seal the southern trade route. Without it, salt price triples. ELDER: Her people sing to the river as mother. Pour wine into it at dusk. Different north. COUNCILOR 1: It is economics, not love. Statecraft. LOKMON: Can a man bring another world into his house and not bring its worldview into his heart? Can he host a song without learning its theology? ELDER: A mature man can compartmentalize. You are mature. [Beat. This is the hinge. Audience knows what he does not. The compass on table trembles one degree.] LOKMON: Then take her. Let it be diplomacy. One door will not sink a house. [He signs. Sound of one arrow being placed on stage, pointing slightly off north. No one notices. One degree seems negligible until you have walked a hundred miles.] That night, LEYA arrives — distinct, louder laugh than Zaphra women, color on eyelids, stories where the moon changes companions nightly and is celebrated for it. To Lokmon, who spent youth being wise, she offers permission to simply be a man — unobserved, unapologetic, unserious. It is intoxicating. LEYA: You are always north. Do you ever get tired of being north? Even compass needs to rest. LOKMON (laughs, truly, first time in months): I did not know I was tired until you asked. [She touches his hand. First thread pulled. In tapestry, one thread seems negligible until pattern loosens. Blackout. Sound of wind through first open door. SUSPENSE: The audience knows one door is never one door.] Act II — The Gathering of Arrows [Rising Tension] [Montage with drums. Each new companion enters with a door, a sound, a scent. The House of Many Doors grows. Two hundred doors by year fifteen. Each entrance is beautiful. Each entrance is a negotiation.] HILL PRINCESS enters with war drums, shouting at sun: We greet morning by shouting dominance! Silence is submission! My cooks will not cook if sun not shouted at! My priests must shout too! LOKMON (accommodating): Let them shout. It is culture. SPICE DAUGHTER enters with incense, counting rings: A man’s worth is rings. Left hand eating shows openness. Right hand is closed mind. My family has 200 rings. LOKMON: Then we will eat left-handed when you are present. Respect. MARBLE DANCER enters barefoot, spins: The body has no inherited codes, only preferences. Choose daily. No preference more true than another. That is freedom. LOKMON: Fascinating philosophy. Tell me more. He does not gather companions because he needs affection. He gathers them because each represents treaty, trade, taste, new way of seeing. He calls it curiosity. Cultural literacy. “A wise man should know all worlds,” he says in council. Council applauds cosmopolitanism. No one asks what it costs to know all worlds and still remain one man. Leya watches from balcony, counting doors. He builds on eastern hill large residence called The House of Many Doors. Each companion lives in room decorated according to homeland. One room incense without cease. One no chairs — chairs create hierarchy. One icons with kind faces and exacting doctrines about children, wealth, fidelity. Palace becomes museum where every exhibit demands worship, not viewing. At first, Lokmon visits and returns to chamber intact. Listens to songs, still hums own. Confident in filter. LEYA (at midnight, finds him humming Hill chant, not Zaphra lullaby): You hum theirs longer each night. LOKMON: Appreciation, Leya. LEYA: Appreciation without absorption is wisdom. Absorption without center is drift. Which is this? Look — ten kitchens because food laws conflict. Twelve calendars because holy days conflict. No single greeting because greetings have become political. Guards ask “Which greeting today, Majesty?” Is that appreciation or abdication? LOKMON (defensive, first time): You sound like Elders. One door, one way. World bigger than that. LEYA: World big. That is why house needs center. Otherwise you are not king hosting world. You are guest in own palace. Your center — LOKMON: My center is strong enough to hold thousand doors. LEYA (softly, prophetic): No center can hold thousand norths, my love. Even yours. [He turns away. She holds two contradictory rulings he gave same week — one to please Lowland quarters, opposite to please Hill quarters. Holds both scrolls. Looks at audience. Says nothing. Puts them down. c***k widens. DRAMATIC IRONY: Audience sees what king does not — that his famed wisdom now produces contradictory justice.] Act III — The Slow Drift [Suspense Deepens] No one can pinpoint day Lokmon changed. That is how dilution works. Not flood. Daily drop, slow drift. Sea does not announce it moves boat. Boat wakes elsewhere. Audience watches drift in real time, powerless to warn. CHORUS (whispering timeline, ominous): Year one, he tasted out of politeness. Year two, wore garments out of affection. Year three, repeated proverbs to make them smile. Year four, defended customs in council to keep peace. Year five, no longer remembered which custom was originally his. Enter MIRA OF THE NORTH — charismatic, 28, believes truth malleable, promise only as strong as feeling when made. She does not argue. She affirms, which is more dangerous. MIRA: A promise made in winter cannot bind a heart in summer. We evolve. Growth requires betrayal of old self. LOKMON (first, argues): A promise is debt to future self. MIRA (smiles): Even debt can be forgiven if creditor grows. [Five years later. Same room. Old farmer kneels, same farmer from Act I whose case Lokmon once solved brilliantly.] FARMER: Majesty, you promised my field boundary would hold. You wrote it. LOKMON (hears himself, shocked at own words, but says them anyway): My understanding has evolved. My feeling has changed. Boundaries are stories we tell to feel safe. FARMER stares, broken not by loss of land but loss of king. Leya watches from doorway. She hears Mira’s language in husband’s mouth. First time audience sees Leya afraid, not for marriage, but for kingdom. She touches her own belly — pregnant with Joram. What north will child inherit? Enter SOVEREIGN OF FRANKINCENSE — brilliant eastern ruler, three-month stay. Holds capability equals justification. To be able to do something means one should. SOVEREIGN: To be able to build monument means you should. Otherwise ability insulted. Man who does not immortalize himself will be forgotten. You have built for others. When will you build for your name? LOKMON, who believed power was for service, commissions colossal monument to himself after she leaves, 40 feet high, facing east so all caravans see. Council confused. He does not notice shift. He calls it legacy. It is insecurity. He begins celebrating festivals he does not understand. Authorizes shrines he does not believe in, “to make them feel at home.” Speaks less of code. Judgments cloudy. Gives one ruling to please Lowland quarters and opposite ruling next day to please Hill quarters. People whisper: The king now has many voices. COURTIER (brave, quiet, risking position): Majesty, what is our north this season? Guards need one answer. Judges need one law. LOKMON laughs, but question lodges like splinter. Because he no longer knows. He has many norths. Which is another way of saying none. [SUSPENSE c****x OF ACT III: That night, Lokmon tries to write his code in journal for unborn son. Pen hovers. Writes “Guard your center —” stops. Crosses out. Writes “Guard your centers —” stops. Leaves blank. Stares at blank page. Blank page stares back. This is first time great explainer cannot explain himself to himself. He closes journal, ashamed. Leya enters, sees blank page, says nothing. She knows. Audience knows. He does not yet know that not knowing is already falling.] Act IV — The Price of Every Door [Consequences] [ELDER addresses audience directly. To deny gains would be dishonest and would make this polemic, not literature. Suspense is not in whether gifts exist, but whether bill will be paid.] ELDER: From many alliances, Zaphra learned. Leya taught water storage in desert clay — child mortality in summer cut by half. Spice wife taught fever remedy that saved entire villages. Marble wife taught sculpture that made city beautiful enough travelers wept upon entry. Hill wife taught terracing that doubled grain on slopes. Children spoke five languages before ten. Table held ten breads. Kingdom rich, cosmopolitan, admired from Lowlands to Marble. Envoys said, “Zaphra is world in one city.” Lokmon proud of that sentence. Audience applauded too, perhaps. That is seduction of boundless mingling. Feels like growth. Some of it is. But costs quieter, longer-lived, and costs always outlive gifts if foundation shifts. COST ONE — Loss of center. Court scene. JORAM (15, earnest, wants to please father): Father, judges confused. Yesterday man stole goat. Under our law, return two. Under Hill law, forgiven if hungry. Under River law, hand marked. Under Marble law, goat belongs to whoever needs it more. Which law are we? Guards ask me. I say ask Father. What should I tell them? LOKMON: We are all of them. Be kind. Use context. JORAM (unsatisfied, heartbroken): Kindness without clarity is not justice. It is fog. What is “my father’s house” if every house is also valid? If everything valid, nothing valuable. LOKMON: My father’s house [adds quickly, glancing at wives present] but your mothers’ houses also contain wisdom JORAM leaves. Father who validates everything teaches children nothing worth defending. Not tolerance. Abdication. Joram writes in own journal that night: “My father has many doors. I want one door that locks.” COST TWO — Exhaustion of pleasing. [LOKMON at desk, piles scrolls: “Leya upset about incense, Hill wife upset about drum, Marble wife upset about seating, Spice wife upset about spice not in incense room.” He rubs eyes. No entries about justice, roads, library. His diary tells story: pages of sensitivities. No entries about north.] LEYA: When did you last read for wisdom, not for peacekeeping? LOKMON: I manage sensitivities now. That is leadership in world of many doors. LEYA: That is concierge work, not kingship. Concierge pleases guests. King defines house. COST THREE — Transfer never neutral. Two companions argue over children in same nursery, both loving, both certain, both incompatible. COMPANION A: Children should be flattered constantly to build esteem! Never say no! COMPANION B: Children should be hardened early to build resilience! Never say yes easily! Children watch, bewildered. Love to one mother means indulgence. To another, control. To another, absence to foster independence. Same word, three opposite definitions. Children learn word means nothing, only volume matters. ELDER (to audience, grave): Every door opened to world opened draft across throne. Eventually, throne could not hold occupant steady. Compass still existed. But room had too many magnets. Every gift arrived with invoice. Gift visible immediately. Bill came twenty years later — in children. And bill always larger than gift when center lost. [SUSPENSE: Council meeting. Lokmon gives ruling. Half council nods. Other half looks at each other. No one claps. Silence new. Silence heavier than boos. Leya looks at Joram. Joram looks at floor. Something has broken that applause cannot fix.] Act V — The House of Many Voices [c****x of Confusion] [One hundred and twenty children. Brilliant. Polyglot. Well-traveled without leaving home. Each child parliament with no prime minister. Stage crowded with voices, all talking at once, then sudden silence when Kito speaks — classic dramatic device.] JORAM (25, half Zaphra half Lowland, meant heir, torn, trying to be bridge): Father, I pour water for river before council because mother taught river is mother. Elders weep. Not anger. Loss. They ask, “Whose son is this?” I ask too. Am I Zaphra or Lowland? Must I choose? You never chose. You collected. I do not want collection. I want root. Give me root, Father. LOKMON: You can be both. Be bridge. Bridges honored. JORAM: A bridge with no banks is not bridge. It is debris in water. I want to be bridge with banks. What are my banks? Tell me one thing that is true in this house even when it offends someone. One thing we will not negotiate. [LOKMON has no banks to give. He gave all banks away as tolerance. Long pause. Audience feels suspense — will he find one non-negotiable?] LOKMON: We are... we are kind. JORAM (softly, devastating): Kindness is not bank. Kindness is weather. Banks hold weather. What holds our kindness? [He exits. LOKMON stares after. He realizes he has no answer that does not offend someone, and therefore has no answer.] ELIRA (Spice daughter, 22, believes wealth is spirituality): Father, I built markets inside library. Why read about life when you can acquire it? Why contemplate bread when you can buy bakeries? You taught us worth is rings. I counted. Library has no rings. So I put rings where books were. Logical. LOKMON: I did not teach that — [realizes, horror] — I allowed it to be taught. And allowing is teaching. ELIRA: Children do not listen to lectures, Father. They watch what you allow. You allowed everything. So we learned everything matters equally. Which means nothing matters enough. KITO (youngest, 9, Marble dancer’s son, small voice that silences room): Father, what do we believe in this house? Every mother says something different. Every room has different answer. What is answer in your room? When you are alone, what do you believe? [The question every child of global age asks. Silence. This is dramatic c****x of Act V. Lokmon looks at 120 faces, each beautiful, each fluent, each unplaceable. He thought he was collecting companions, but was collecting worlds. Worlds now live inside children, arguing at dinner table and inside own mind. He hears himself using Leya’s proverb morning and Marble wife’s proverb afternoon, contradicting morning self without noticing. He is many voices. That is not wisdom. That is fragmentation.] LOKMON (whispers, to himself as much as them): I built palace with thousand doors and cannot find main entrance. I wanted house to be world. Now world is in house, and house nowhere. [Kingdom does not fall with war. It thins. Becomes fog. Next generation cannot build roads through mountains because cannot agree which mountain sacred, which direction forward, whether roads should be built at all. They hold conferences to decide whether to hold conferences. Fluent, educated, well-traveled, paralyzed. Tragedy not b****y. Tragedy bureaucratic, which is more terrifying because it feels familiar.] VISITING POET (writes in journal, reads aloud, unaware king hears, line that gives book its title): They have many arrows, but no north. The center could not hold. LOKMON hears. Phrase strikes like verdict, like diagnosis. He repeats it, barely audible, as if tasting poison he himself brewed. LOKMON: The center could not hold. The center... could not hold. [Light flickers. All arrows on stage slowly turn, each pointing different way. Needle spins uselessly, then stops, pointing nowhere. SUSPENSE: What does a king do when he realizes he is architect of his own fog? Will he defend fog or clear it?] Act VI — The Mirror of the Compass [Reckoning] [Sixty. Old library. Glass roof cracked. Rain stained scrolls. No one maintained because no one could agree whose duty it was — Hill said rain sacred, should not be stopped; Lowland said glass disrespects river; Marble said c***k is art. LOKMON alone finds youthful journal under pile of unfiled treaties from Spice Kingdoms. Dusts it. Opens.] First page, sharp young hand, ink still dark after forty years: “A man is only as strong as his single allegiance. Guard your center more than your treasury. May your heart stay true.” He sits. Weeps. Not because betrayed. No one forced. No wife coerced. No tribe invaded. He invited. Opened gates, believing wisdom strong enough filter, character strong enough container. Hardest lesson of privileged: intelligent, accomplished, honorable, well-intentioned, well-endowed, and still become contrast to self, not by one catastrophic decision, but by thousand small allowances. By calling compromise sophistication. Lack of boundaries love. Indecision open-mindedness. He calls children together. Does not scold. Narrates. Great leaders narrate when scolding no longer works. Scolding divides. Story invites. LOKMON: I wanted to love world, so I married world. Forgot love without root becomes drift. Every culture I welcomed gave gift and bill. Gift visible immediately — remedy, song, terrace, sculpture. Bill came twenty years later — in you. In way you cannot tell where you end and inherited contradictions begin. In way you fluent in everything and rooted in nothing. I thought I was teaching you openness. I taught you homelessness. [Places brass compass on table. Needle trembles, pulled by iron in many bracelets wives left on table — literal magnets. Metaphor made physical, theatrical.] LOKMON: Look. One needle. One north. Around it, many arrows. Each beautiful. Each believes it is north. When I tried to honor all arrows, my needle stopped knowing. I thought I was generous. I was disloyal to my own north. And man disloyal to own north cannot be loyal to anyone else, however many doors he opens. You cannot serve many norths. You can respect many norths, but you can serve only one. [Silence. Truth, even unadorned, even without religious language, heavy. Children understand, not because eloquent, but because they live consequence. Joram steps forward first.] JORAM: Father, what do we do now? Doors already here. Arrows already in walls. Can we remove them? LOKMON: You cannot unscramble water. But you can choose which water you will drink from now. You cannot close all doors, but you can choose which door is main entrance. You cannot silence arrows, but you can choose which arrow you will follow. Center cannot hold if you keep adding weight to circumference. It holds when you return to center. LEYA (enters, gray now, only wall that remained, voice steady): He is right. Appreciation without absorption. Keep center true, then open many windows. Windows let you see world without letting world rearrange furniture. Doors let world move in. Windows let world be seen. LOKMON (to Leya, remorse and love): I thought wisdom was holding many truths. Wisdom is keeping one true thing at center and letting other truths orbit it. I made orbit the center. Forgive me. LEYA: I forgave long ago. I waited for you to return, not to me, but to yourself. [SUSPENSE: Will children accept? Elira crosses arms, skeptical. Joram looks at compass, then at father. Kito steps forward, picks up compass, holds it steady with both small hands. Needle steadies slightly. Small gesture, huge meaning. Audience holds breath. The compass steadies because child’s hands are steady. The next generation can do what this generation could not — if taught.] Act VII — The Choice to Return [Resolution with Tension] [Lokmon lives long enough to see grandchildren. More diluted, more confused, but also capable of something new, if someone teaches. He notices confusion, when named, can become curiosity, and curiosity, when guided, can become clarity. He abdicates House of Many Doors. Not in shame, but in clarity. Builds small house with one door on edge of desert. Ordinary Zaphra stone. One door. No incense that never stops. One kitchen. One calendar. One greeting: May your heart stay true.] He teaches anyone who will listen, especially young who think choice only about today, only about feeling, only about appetite. Crowd gathers — teenagers, youths, young adults, parents. This is his final court, not to settle disputes between traders, but to settle dispute inside self. Suspense: will they listen, or will they repeat? LOKMON: Every choice you make is not only for you. It is seed. Some seeds become food in your lifetime. Some become forests your grandchildren must live inside, or get lost inside. You are not only choosing companion. You are choosing culture for unborn children. Choosing what normal will mean in your house twenty years from now. Your children will not live in your intentions. They will live in your choices. Before you join life to another life, another habit, another doctrine, another way of living — whether through marriage, friendship, enterprise, or even shows you watch and songs you repeat — ask not only, ‘Do I like this?’ but ‘Can I live with what this will make me become in ten years? Can my children live with what this will make them? What north does this arrow serve? Does this door lead to a house I want my children to live in?’ Culture larger than dress. It is what you call right when no one watches. It is how you define enough. What you do with power. What you call love. Be careful what you allow into house, because what you allow into house will eventually live in heart, and what lives in heart will eventually live in children, and what lives in children will eventually live in city. City you love will become what you tolerated in your living room. People of Zaphra did not remember Lokmon for gold. Remembered for final teaching: Strength is not in how much you can hold, but in what you refuse to release. Center that holds is not narrow. It is deep. It allows many windows without moving foundation. Prestigious life is not one with many arrows. Prestigious life is one with one steady needle that others can navigate by. Some grandchildren, hearing that, chose differently. Still loved many people, respected many worlds, traveled widely, learned languages. But learned to have center. To appreciate without absorbing. To love without losing themselves. To keep one north and enjoy many arrows as information, not as identity. That was turn. JORAM (now king, rebuilds, voice firm, new law): I keep library of scrolls from many lands — wisdom indeed everywhere. But I teach one law in courts, one greeting in morning, one center. “What lives in your house?” becomes question every child taught to ask before bringing something new home. Not “Is it beautiful?” Not “Is it useful?” Not “Is it trending?” But “What lives in it? What spirit, habit will it bring and leave behind when gift is gone? What north does it serve?” [Final image: Compass. One needle steady. Many arrows still around, but now clearly around, not center. Needle points north. Kito holds it. Joram stands behind him, hand on shoulder, steadying hand that steadies compass. Leya watches, tears, not sadness but return.] LOKMON (old, to Leya, last words, whisper that carries): What color will posterity hold? LEYA: The color you finally chose, my love. Color of return. Color of true north. [He smiles. Dies not as diluted king, but as concentrated man. Not as man with many voices, but one voice, true. And posterity held that color. Because even diluted king can become concentrated again if willing to pour himself out and begin again. Even center that could not hold can be rebuilt, stone by stone, choice by choice.] What north will your life declare? What will your house stand for when you are not there to explain it? Every love leaves a color. Every door invites a world. May your center hold, even when thousand voices suggest otherwise. May your needle stay true. Coda — For the Reader Who Stands Between [Direct Address — Suspense for Your Life] [Spotlight leaves Zaphra, falls on audience. Actor steps out of ancient, speaks to modern — Lagos, London, New York, Nairobi, wherever you are reading. Fourth wall breaks, because your life is not fiction.] You who read this, stand between. Between home training and street wisdom. Between inherited values and trending values. Between what you know steady and what feels pleasant now. Between mother’s kitchen and internet’s kitchen. Between father’s definition of success and feed’s definition. Between who you are and who your timeline says you should be. You are Lokmon. We all are, at some hour. Question not whether you will stand between. You will. Question whether you will have center while standing there. Question whether your center will hold when arrows multiply. This allegory not against intermarriage, intercultural friendship, or global learning. It says: Learn. Travel. Taste. Listen. World full of medicine, art, beauty Zaphra does not have. Be cosmopolitan. Curious. Multilingual. Collect windows, not doors. Windows let you see world without letting world rearrange furniture. But also: Know your center. Write it down tonight. Name your north in one sentence. If you cannot name north in one sentence, you do not have one; you have moods. Moods do not hold centers. Only convictions do. If you do not know your north, every arrow will claim it is north. Every strong personality will recruit you. Every beautiful door will promise it is main entrance. Every algorithm will give you new north every hour. Do not fear being called narrow. River without banks is not wide. It is swamp. House without walls is not open-minded. It is homeless. Compass that tries to point everywhere points nowhere, however inclusive it feels. Tolerance without center is not tolerance. It is abandonment — abandonment of self, and eventually, of children. Image on cover — single golden needle surrounded by many colored arrows — is daily life. Arrows not enemies. They are possibilities. Your job not to hate arrows. Job to keep needle true. To know which beautiful, talented, persuasive arrow is not yours to follow. Tonight, before sleep, ask: What lives in my house today? What music, what language, what definition of love, success, enough lives in my house because I allowed it? What will my children drink from my life tomorrow? What north will they inherit when my voice gone? May your center hold. May your doors be many. But may you never confuse the two. May your needle stay true.