You Small Mortals Don't Realize

Hopes Were Wallflowers. Hopes Hugged The Perimeter Of A Dance Floor In Your Brain, Tugging At Their Party Lace, All Perfume And Hems And Doomed Expectation. They Fanned Their Dance Cards, These Guests That Pressed Against The Walls Of Your Heart.

I Want A Real Encounter With Something True And Disconcerting About Peoples' Natures.

Heaven, Kiwi Thought, Would Be The Reading Room Of A Great Library. But It Would Be Private. Cozy. You Wouldn't Have To Worry About Some Squeaky-shoed Librarian Turning The Lights Off On You Or Gauging Your Literacy By Reading The Names On Your Book Spines, And There Wouldn't Be A Single Other Patron. The Whole Place Would Hum With A Library's Peace, Filtering Softly Over You Like White Bars Of Light.

Granana Doesn't Understand What The Big Deal Is. She Didn't Cry At Olivia's Funeral, And I Doubt She Even Remembers Olivia's Name. Granana Lost, Like, Ninety-two Million Kids In Childbirth. All Of Her Brothers Died In The War. She Survived The Depression By Stealing Radish Bulbs From Her Neighbors' Garden, And Fishing The Elms For Pigeons. Dad Likes To Remind Us Of This In A Grave Voice, As If It Explained Her Jaundiced Pitilessness: "boys. Your Grandmother Ate Pigeons."

It Was Sad And Fierce All At Once, Alive With A Lonely Purity.