Ok, so I really did go to bed, but I always read before I fall asleep, and I came across this passage, which I had to share, and I knew if I didn't do it now, I'd forget about it, so here goes (I started with just the part that struck me, but then realized it didn't make much sense without the context around it, so I started putting in the important parts from earlier in the chapter to make it make sense):
[From the main character's deceased wife's dream journal]
”I dreamed they cut me open and found I had two hearts. The second one was small, and it was a different color. It was hidden underneath the main heart, so they didn't see it at first. I was very surprised when they told me about it, bu thte doctor said it was completely normal. He said that most people have two hearts, we just never know it.”
[The main character's voice]
It's true, isn't it, that each of us has two hearts? The secret heart, hidden behind like a fist, living gnarled and shrunken beneath the plain, open one we use every day.
[...snip...]
It's not the content of our dreams that gives our second heart its dark color; it's the thoughts that go through our heads in those wakeful moments when sleep won't come. And those are the things we never tell anyone at all.
The last paragraph is the one that I found intriguing. It's something to think about really. Isn't that when your truest feelings come to surface? When you're not really thinking about them? It is for me. I can't tell you how many times thoughts hit me when i'm in that half-awake/half-asleep state before you actually doze off. I should keep a notebook by the bed and write them down. I actually came up with probably 3-4 pages of a beginning to a short story last week, but by morning of course, I couldn't remember any of it.
Anyhow, this is from The Dogs of Babel, by Carolyn Parkhurst. I'm almost done with it, in fact, I'll probably finish it tonight. I'm not sure what my thoughts about it are, I'm definitely not as into it as I was the last few books I read. Now, back to bed, I just had to share that.