buoyancy.........................

 

I was in the bog with my father.  We were drawing out the turf.  His ass would walk where mine would sink and that, while we were eating out lunch in the high heather, is what we were talking about, the lightness of step that some people have and the pure dead weight in the walk and talk of others.  It was obvious to us that this had nothing to do with what we weigh on scales.  A small slight man would sometimes sink to his ankles where a big, heavy looking man would leave only the faintest evidence of his passing.  It had to do with mind, we concluded.  Some people's mind give buoyancy to their bodies, whereas other people's minds dumbfound their bodies to such an extent they could never be slaughánsmen.

-John Moriarty,  A Hut at the Edge of the Village