“My happy wagon is almost empty, Leo. Only five pebbles left. Happywise, I’m operating on only 25 percent capacity. Remember when I first showed my wagon to you? How many pebbles were in it then? Seventeen? And then I put another in, remember? I never told you this, but before I went to bed that night, after we kissed for the first time on the sidewalk outside my house, I put in the last two pebbles. Twenty. Total happiness. For the first time ever. It stayed that way until I painted that big sign on a sheet and hung it outside the school for all the world to see…”

“You're really dumb," she whispered in my ear."Yeah?""Yeah. Why do you think there're eighteen pebbles in my wagon?" And then the last remaining space between our lips was gone and I was falling headlong into her eyes, right there on Palo Verde after dinner. And I can tell you, that was no saint kissing me.”

“I began to feel again something that I had been only dimly aware of before. It was a small, surprising sense of disappointment even as he was kissing me, but the violins were so loud at the time I could hear nothing else. Now the disappointment was returning and with it the realization that the magic had come only from the moment, not from him. It was different with you. In the eyes and ears of my heart, you and the magic are one and the same. The setting never mattered. On the sidewalk in front of my house, at the enchanted place in the desert, walking the halls at school- where I was with you, I heard violins.”

“I’m erased. I’m gone. I’m nothing. And then the world is free to flow into me like water into an empty bowl…. And… I see. I hear. But not with eyes and ears. I’m not outside my world anymore, and I’m not really inside it either. The thing is, there’s no difference between me and the universe. The boundary is gone. I am it and it is me. I am a stone, a cactus thorn. I am rain. I like that most of all, being rain.”

“I grabbed her, right there outside the lunch room in the swarming mob. I didn't care if others were watching. In fact, i hoped they were. I grabbed her and squeezed her. I had never been so happy and so proud in my life.”

“It was the day of the worms. That first almost-warm, after-the-rainy-night day in April, when you bolt from your house to find yourself in a world of worms. They were as numerous here in the East End as they had been in the West. The sidewalks, the streets. The very places where they didn't belong. Forlorn, marooned on concrete and asphalt, no place to burrow, April's orphans.”

“It's hard to do nothing totally. Even just sitting here, like this, our bodies are churning, our minds are chattering. There's a whole commotion going on inside us." "That's bad?" I said. "It's bad if we want to know what's going on outside ourselves." "Don't we have eyes and ears for that?"She nodded. "They're okay most of the time. But sometimes they just get in the way. The earth is speaking to us, but we can't hear because of all the racket our senses are shaking. Sometimes we need to erase them, erase our senses. Then-maybe- the earth will touch us. The universe will speak. The stars will whisper." The sun was glowing orange now, clipping the mountains' purple crests. "So how do I become this nothing?" "I'm not sure,"she said "There's no one answer to that. You have to find your own way. Sometimes I try to erase myself. I imagine a big pink soft soap eraser, and it's going back and forth, back and forth, and it starts down at my toes, back and forth, back and forth, and there they go-poof!-my toes are gone. And then my feet. And then my ankles. But that's the easy part. The hard part is erasing my senses-my eyes,my ears,my nose, my tongue. And last to go is my brain. My thoughts, memories, all the voices inside my head. That's the hardest, erasing my thoughts." She chuckled faintly. "My pumpkin. And then, if I've done a good job, I'm erased. I'm gone. I'm nothing. And then the world is free to flow into me like water into and empty bowl." "And?" I said. "And I see. I hear. But not with eyes and ears. I'm not outside my world anymore, and I'm not really inside it either. The thing is, there's no difference anymore between me and the universe. The boundary is gone. I am it and it is me. I am a stone, a cactus thorn. I am rain." She smiled dreamily. "I like that most of all, being rain.”