Unrequited Love Is So Boring. Weeping Under

No One Knows You Like A Person With Whom You've Shared A Childhood. No One Will Ever Understand You In Quite The Same Way.

She Was Disappearing A Little More Each Day, So Thin, So Frail, A Wisp Of Smoke. One Day She Would Surely Vanish Altogether, And There Was No Way To Stop Her.

Any Weapon Touched By A Woman, Even By Accident, Must Be Cleansed With Both Water And Prayer So That Her Essence Would Not Linger, Diverting The Warrior Who Might Use It Next, For Even The Faintest Touch Could Bring Lust To That Man's Heart. Perhaps That Meant A Woman Who Was Well Trained In Arms Would Be The Superior Warrior, Her Attention Never Wavering From Her Task.

Our House Was Littered With Books- In The Kitchen, Under The Beds, Stuck Between The Couch Pillows--far Too Many For Her The Ever Finish. I Suppose I Thought If My Grandmother Kept Up Her Interests, She Wouldn't Die; She'd Have To Stay Around To Finish The Books She Was So Fond Of. "i've Got To Get To The Bottom Of This One," She'd Say, As If A Book Were No Different From A Pond Or A Lake. I Thought She'd Go On Reading Forever But It Didn't Work Out That Way.

...and So Many Orchards Circled The Village That On Some Crisp October Afternoons The Whole Wold Smelled Like Pie.