She is, above all else, tired; she wants more than anything to return to her bed and her book. The world, this world, feels suddenly stunned and stunted, far from everything.

That summer when she was eighteen, it seemed anything could happen, anything at all.

Oh, all you immigrants and visionaries, what do you hope to find here, who do you hope to become?

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 is, above all else, tired; she wants more than anything to return to her bed and her book. The world, this world, feels suddenly stunned and stunted, far from everything.

The vestibule door opens onto a June morning so fine and scrubbed Classira pauses at the threshold as she would at the edge of a pool, watching the turquoise water lapping at the tiles, the liquid nets of sun wavering in the blue depths. As if standing at the edge of a pool she delays for a moment the plunge, the quick membrane of chill, the plain shock of immersion.

. . . he felt himself entering a moment so real he could only run toward it, shouting.