In the short time he'd been riding with them, he'd almost come to feel more at home up in the Inconvenience than he did at the Agency.
* * * * * * * * * *
Well of course Lew did! The Chums are right good fellows who must be a lot of fun to pal around with (excepting Lindsay, of course). And who is there to joke around with back at the Agency?! Nate? Rewind? The dozens of nameless coworkers Lew named who would have been better suited for the Denver transfer? The ones who, daily, tried to convince Lew that Anarchists were around every corner blowing things up and destroying America? Why would Lew ever feel at home at the Agency? Why would Lew ever feel at home anywhere since he obviously isn't even in his proper timeline! I say "obviously" because it seems obvious to me but I guess it's just theory and speculation. But what do you expect from somebody whose formative years were spent watching In Search Of which begins with "This series presents information based in part in theory and conjecture." I was five years old when I began watching that show! My whole world became based in theory and conjecture!
"come to feel more at home up in the Inconvenience"
Lew has begun the transformation into a ballooner, more comfortable in the heavens than on the Earth. Already on the Earth, he had begun to see things in ways he couldn't unsee: weird hidden districts, labyrinthine hotels, union workers as human beings, chaotic and violent rulers. He was learning inconvenient truths which were edging him out of the comfort of the status quo. The Agency was where one believes what those in power want you to believe, grounded and sure; the Inconvenience is where one can see the true scope of things, throwing a wrench in the comfort of life trying not to care too much about anything but themselves. As Pynchon so starkly stated in Gravity's Rainbow, the "inconvenience of caring" was a thing so abhorred by so many that they would contort their world view and beliefs into pretzels of logic to continue to ignore it.
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