But what is your life? Can you see it? It vanishes at its own appearance. Moment by moment. Until it vanishes to appear no more. When you look at the world is there a point in time when the seen becomes the remembered? How are they separate? It is that which we have no way o show. It is that which is missing from our map and from the picture that it makes. And yet is all we have.

No one can tell you what your life is goin to be, can they?No. It's never like what you expected.Quijada nodded. If people knew the story of their lives how many would then elect to live them?

Sometimes you have a little problem and you dont fix it and then all of a sudden it aint a littleproblem anymore.

Do you think I lie to you?No.But you think I might lie to you about dying.Yes.Okay. I might. But we're not dying.Okay.

There is no book and your fathers are dead in the ground.

in that cold autistic dark.

In the grueling light that passed for day...

The heart beneath the breastbone pumping. The blood on its appointed rounds. Life in small places, narrow crannies. In the leaves, the toad's pulse. The delicate cellular warfare in a waterdrop. A dextrocardiac, said the smiling doctor. Your heart's in the right place. Weathershrunk and loveless. The skin drawn and split like an overripe fruit.

They sat in the little diningroom and ate. She'd put on music, a violin concerto. The phone didnt ring.Did you take it off the hook?No, she said.Wires must be down.She smiled. I think it's just the snow. I think it makes people stop and think.Bell nodded. I hope it comes a blizzard then.Do you remember the last time it snowed here?No, I cant say as I do. Do you?Yes I do.When was it.It'll come to you.Oh.She smiled. They ate.