In a rough way the short story writer is to the novelist as a cabinetmaker is to a house carpenter.

It's easier to die if others around you are dying.

...all them things I don't know could get you killed if I come to know them

I rarely use the internet for research, as I find the process cumbersome and detestable. The information gained is often untrustworthy and couched in execrable prose. It is unpleasant to sit in front of a twitching screen suffering assault by virus, power outage, sluggish searches, system crashes and the lack of direct human discourse.

Their silence comfortable. Something unfolding. But what? Not love, which wrenched and wounded. Not love, which came only once.

If a piece of knotted string can unleash the wind, and if a drowned man can awaken, then I believe a broken man can heal.

A spinning coin, still balanced on its rim, may fall in either direction.