Message from a Ghost
Elliott has a recurring encounter with a Ghost who says just one thing; a repetition of a single phrase spoken in Arabic. He engages Professor Aman to assist in figuring out what it means (without telling him it is spoken by a ghost) by translating the words into English. Up to the point of translation, he has only ever heard it in the foreign language and he utilizes a simile to explain how he is able to remember the phrase so clearly despite not speaking Arabic:
“It’s like a song I can’t get out of my head.”
Chutes&Ladders on the Ocean
During one of his online exchanges with Orangutan, Chutes&Ladders waxed quite metaphorical about his fear of the ocean and the near-death near-drowning incident which spurred that phobia:
“There’s only one thing on this planet I’m more scared of than that big blue lady…”
“I was sinking to the bottom and my head hit the sand like a lead ball. My body just felt like an anvil. “
Tech Cultural Differences
The online user of the website established by Elliott’s mom known as Orangutan is a Japanese-American currently living in Japan. She is naturally impressed by the differences between her actual homeland and her ancestral homeland, especially when it comes to utilitarian quality of technological advancements, explaining to Chutes&Ladders at one point that Japan is so advance that:
“Internet cafés are like parking meters here.”
Respect for the Dead?
Ginny, the aunt who raised Elliott in the void of a mother ill-prepared to handle those duties, has died. Though she had no children of other own, many in the Puerto Rican community in Philadelphia looked upon her as a mother figure for them all. Those arriving from Puerto Rico for her funeral are decided less honorable when it comes to respecting her memory as Yaz informs Elliott when he relays the information from his father that the islanders almost immediately upon arrival were
“tearing through Ginny’s closets like it was a shopping spree.”
Ginny’s Eulogy
Elliott and Yaz share duties when the time finally arrives for Ginny’s funeral. They eulogize her in concrete terms, recalling how she grew vegetables in her garden and left the gate open for anyone who needed to eat and how she drank beer and told off-color jokes with such panache that even the strictest churchgoing women could not help from laughing. She served as a nurse during wartime and got herself arrested for demonstrating in the name of peace. In summing up Ginny, however, Elliott’s description turns to the metaphorical while still sticking to literal terminology, describing her as:
“A woman who built her community with a hammer and nails.”
