Tragedy alters everything.

What better place to kill time than a library?

There is something about words. In expert hands, manipulated deftly, they take you prisoner. Wind themselves around your limbs like spider silk, and when you are so enthralled you cannot move, they pierce your skin, enter your blood, numb your thoughts. Inside you they work their magic.

Once upon a time there was a fairy godmother, but the rest of the time there was none. This story is about one of those other times.

opening the book, i inhaled. the smell of old books, so sharp, so dry you can taste it.

My genius is not so frail a thing that it cowers from the dirty fingers of newspapernen.

The funeral was over, at last I could cry. Except that I couldn't. My tears, kept in too long, had fossilized. They would have to stay in forever now.