“But, whatever the magic, I wasn’t smarter than chemistry, and after a while, I heard two people talking in the empty room next door, their whispers coming out of the phone jack.”

“Now, 75 years [after To Kill a Mockingbird], in an abundant society where people have laptops, cell phones, iPods, and minds like empty rooms, I still plod along with books.[Open Letter, O Magazine, July 2006]”

“I cocked an ear, but there was nothing much to hear. A girl was on the phone next door, complaining about some guy to a girlfriend, and someone down a floor was either talking to his cat or having a psychotic episode, but both voices were clearer than the soft noises coming from the living room. The vamps were presumably cleaning the wounds better than I’d been able to do at the bar, and bandaging him up. I knew nobody was planning a snack– it would be like offering people used to Beluga caviar and Dom Perignon a sack of stale Fritos and a flat Coke. Sloppy seconds weren’t likely to appeal. ”

“Mal,” I whispered into the night.“What?”“Thanks for finding me.”I wasn’t sure if I was dreaming, but somewhere in the dark, I thought I heard him whisper, “Always.”

“You know horses are smarter than people. You never heard of a horse going broke betting on people.”

“Suicide. A sideways word, a word that people whisper and mutter and cough: a word that must be squeezed out behind cupped palms or murmured behind closed doors. It was only in dreams that I heard the word shouted, screamed.”