“Like restless birds, the breath of coming rainCreeps, lilac-laden, up the village street”

“The village is coming back, like it or not.”

“Holding up an oil-paper umbrella,I loiter aimlessly in the long, longAnd lonely rainy alley,I hope to encounterA lilac-like girlNursing her resentmentA lilac-like color she hasA lilac-like fragrance,A lilac-like sadness,Melancholy in the rain,Sorrowful and uncertain;She loiters aimlessly in this lonely rainy alleyHolding up an oil-paper umbrellaJust like meAnd just like meWalks silently,Apathetic, sad and disconsolateSilently she moves closerMoves closer and castsA sigh-like glanceShe glides byLike a dreamHazy and confused like a dreamAs in a dream she glides pastLike a lilac spray,This girl glides past beside me;She silently moves away, moves awayUp to the broken-down bamboo fence,To the end of the rainy alley.In the rains sad song,Her color vanishesHer fragrance diffuses,Even herSigh-like glance,Lilac-like discontentVanish.Holding up an oil-paper umbrella, aloneAimlessly walking in the long, longAnd lonely rainy alley,I wish forA lilac-like girlNursing her resentment glide by.”

“The awesome silence of the place crept up on her. The spruce and pines, all still laden with snow, spread their limbs in a frozen ballet, breathing a ghostly incense from dark, arid chapels sheltered by their branches.”

“A muddy little stream, a village grown unfamiliar with time and trees. I turn around and retrace my way up Main Street and park and have a Coke in the confectionery store. It is run by a Greek, as it used to be, but whether the same Greek or another I would not know. He does not recognize me, nor I him. Only the smell of his place is familiar, syrupy with old delights, as if the ghost of my first banana split had come close to breathe on me.”

“The other girls in the village never felt restless. Nhamo was like a pot of boiling water. 'I want...I want...,' she whispered to herself, but she didn't know what she wanted and she had no idea how to find it. ”