You Know, Some People Fall

[on Her And Husband Michael Dorris:] We Both Have Title Collections. I Think A Title Is Like A Magnet. It Begins To Draw These Scraps Of Experience Or Conversation Or Memory To It. Eventually, It Collects A Book.

He Had A Thousand-year-old Stare.

She Had Always Been A Reader… But Now She Was Obsessed. Since Her Discovery Of The Book Hoard Downstairs From Her Job, She’d Been Caught Up In One Such Collection Of People And Their Doings After The Next…the Pleasure Of This Sort Of Life – Bookish, She Supposed It Might Be Called, A Reading Life – Had Made Her Isolation Into A Rich And Even Subversive Thing. She Inhabited One Consoling Or Horrifying Persona After Another…that She Was Childless And Husbandless And Poor Meant Less Once She Picked Up A Book. Her Mistakes Disappeared Into It. She Lived With An Invented Force.

Where Was I?""a Different Island," Said Old Tallow. Her Voice Was Stern, But There Was An Ache In Her Look That Omakayas Had Never Before Seen. "an Island Called Spirit Island Where Everyone But You Died Of The Itching Sickness- You Were The Toughest One, The Littlest One, And You Survived Them All.""you Were Sent Here So You Could Save The Others," She Said. "because You'd Had The Sickness, You Were Strong Enough To Nurse Them Through It. They Did A Good Thing When They Took You In, And You Saved Them For Their Good Act. Now The Circle That Began When I Found You Is Complete.

What Happens When You Let An Unsatisfactory Present Go On Long Enough? It Becomes Your Entire History.