Borders

This is an excerpt from my novel about Sri Lanka, "The Longest Tweet." In this section I look briefly at borders and boundaries, their characteristics and limitations. These paragraphs set the stage for other explorations in the book, such as the continuum from peace to war. 

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Borders

In time, over time, aren't borders a fuzzy or a fluid thing? Where starts and finishes, regrettable but real are but a line, how do we measure the borders of a border? In sound waves of most words there's a running down. A tapering. 140 characters may be achieved by removing a period or changing an and to an ampersand. & more footsteps dissolve borders, push them, expand their width. 

If your border's width is expanded monstrously where is the soft border and where is the hard border? Where is the edge of the border and where is the center of the border? Where does tolerable become intolerable? Where does peace turn to war and where does war turn to peace? Do these slide into one another or collide? Are there gradations and shades? If there is an "absolute" then what is absolute? Is that absolute? What is the calculus? What are these calculuses? How is a calculus of borders reckoned and counted? How are borders piled up? Are they counted like beans? Like cords of wood? Like planks of wood that have been shaven? What sound do they make as they are thrown on top of each other. He could recall the sound-different sounds-of piling wood.