We Become The Stories We Tell Ourselves

Yes," She Answers And Does Not Move. She Might, At This Moment, Be Nothing But A Floating Intelligence; Not Even A Brain Inside A Skull, Just A Presence That Perceives, As A Ghoast Might. Yes, She Thinks, This Is Probably How It Must Feel To Be A Ghost. It's A Little Like Reading, Isn't It-that Same Sensation Of Knowing People, Settings, Situations, Without Playing Any Particular Part Beyond That Of The Willing Observer.

He's One Of Those Smart, Drifty Young People Who, After Certain Deliberations, Decides He Wants To Do Something In The Arts But Won't, Possibly Can't, Think In Terms Of An Actual Job; Who Seems To Imagine That Youth And Brains And Willingness Will Simply Summon An Occupation, The Precise And Perfect Nature Of Which Will Reveal Itself In Its Own Time.

But There Are Still The Hours, Aren't There? One And Then Another, And You Get Through That One And Then, My God, There's Another.

She'd Never Imagined It Like This-when She Thought Of Someone (a Woman Like Herself)losing Her Mind, She'd Imagined Shrieks And Wails, Hallucinations; But At That Moment It Had Seemed Clear That There Was Another Way, Far Quieter; A Way That Was Numb And Hopeless, Flat, So Much So That An Emotion As Strong As Sorrow Would Have Been A Relief.

Oh, All You Immigrants And Visionaries, What Do You Hope To Find Here, Who Do You Hope To Become?