How'd you stop being a man? I imagine there must have been trials, struggles...otherwise you probably wouldn't have noticed any difference.

[And there's a part of the Boy that doesn't view reality as real, not even this--although fantastical stories like those he's seen on the Barge feel more real than the life he left behind at home. So in some respect it feels symbolic, and maybe that's what he likes about Marsh: he's not real, but he's quite powerful. More powerful, more immediate, than the Boy's own brother.]

...Is it possible to be friends with God when it is God?