When You Write A Book,

There Should Be No Telephone In Your Writing Room, Certainly No Tv Or Videogames For You To Fool Around With. If There’s A Window, Draw The Curtains Or Pull Down The Shades Unless It Looks Out At A Blank Wall.

A Great Whispering Noise Began To Rise In The Woods On Either Side Of The Tracks, As If The Forest Had Just Noticed We Were There And Was Commenting On It.

I Realized The Shells Were Talking In A Voice I Recognized. I Should Have; It Was My Own. Had I Always Known That? I Suppose I Had. On Some Level, Unless We're Mad, I Think Most Of Us Know The Various Voices Of Our Own Imaginations. And Of Our Memories, Of Course. They Have Voices, Too. Ask Anyone Who Has Ever Lost A Limb Or A Child Or A Long-cherished Dream. Ask Anyone Who Blames Himself For A Bad Decision, Usually Made In A Raw Instant (an Instant That Is Most Commonly Red). Our Memories Have Voices, Too. Often Sad Ones That Clamor Like Raised Arms In The Dark.

Make-up Covers A Multitude Of Sins.

Oh, There Were All Sorts Of Things To Wonder About, But The Truth Was Simple: Here Stood This Door Alone On An Endless Stretch Of Beach, And It Was For Only One Of Two Things: Opening Or Leaving Closed.