The past is a stronger influence in the South. But I think everywhere you have this sense that the world changes faster than you can accommodate yourself to. Looking back and seeing how you got where you are is a useful way to combat disorientation.

But she couldn't dismiss easily his light touch with her. No pushing or pressing, none of that herding and corralling bullshit, unlike any of her old boyfriends. And maybe who you fell for and who you eventually loved wasn't rational, no matter how hard you tried to list pros and cons and sum the results. You couldn't think your way through it, not all the way. Maybe just the scent of somebody carried more weight than everything else put together.

Disease is nature's revenge for our destructiveness.

That's just pain she said. It goes eventually. And when it's gone, there's no lasting memory. Not the worst of it anyway. It fades. Our minds aren't made to hold on to the particulars of pain the way we do bliss. It's a gift God gives us, a sign of His care for us.

Surely it is a sin to reject the few gifts we are given. Be happy in the flash of time granted to us or hurt forever.

The past is a stronger influence in the South. But I think everywhere you have this sense that the world changes faster than you can accommodate yourself to. Looking back and seeing how you got where you are is a useful way to combat disorientation.

Hardboiled crime fiction came of age in Black Mask magazine during the Twenties and Thirties. Writers like Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler learnt their craft and developed a distinct literary style and attitude toward the modern world.