Concering the Bathroom, cont.

  “I’m sorry about Russ, man,” Renfeild continued. “We all heard. Sucks.”
  “Yeah,” Taylor said flatly. Eric had told him about it. The whole thing had been so beyond a set up it was almost karma. Russell had been a would-be dealer who succumbed to the city’s dark ecology, making the wrong mistakes in an anthropocentric business. What had happened was not their fault or concern. “A point of reality is determined by the perception of the consciousness,” Eric had inscribed in one of his bland envelopes. “As the consciousness is responsible for that which makes it into pronouns, so the reality, de facto, is subject to the point of perception. Therefore there are truths and matters whose fundamental worth is important only in the personal scale. Personal is not the same as important, the same as true reality is more empyreal due to tainted perception. However, we determine choices according to that perception, as Russell did. And his choice was flawed.”
  There was something, Taylor seemed to recall, dealing with . . . . the past, or maybe it was about Taylor’s own search for completing, catching the rest of the Music. He couldn’t remember. It was connected somehow, but in a way that Eric seemed to think would be . . . . something good. . . .now, and it shouldn’t concern.
  Whatever. Nevermind. Taylor thrust it aside with irritation. He trusted Eric, strange as he might be -- he had to. After all, Eric and he had a connection. They were closer than brothers.