“Uh, guys?” Jenks said, hovering at the window. “Fountain Square is on fire.” “What?” I jumped to my feet and turned in one motion. Al rushed to the window, and we pressed our foreheads to the glass, looking down.”

“I made a quick calculation: a 180-pound man, falling thirty feet under an acceleration of 32.2 feet per second square—I drew the shade and turned away from the window and closed my eyes.”

“Was that what childhood was? Things rushing by out a window, the trees connected by motion, going too fast for him to notice the consequences?”

“Sometimes I catch glimpses,through the windows,through the glass,life rushing,whirling,past.”

“Dennis looked at the puppy in the window. We both did. It was the oddest thing. Normally, puppies in pet store windows sleep or pee or roll around on top of other dogs. This one ignored us its window-mates and was instead sitting with its nose pressed against the glass, looking at us with an extremely serious little expression on its face. An expression that seemed to me to be saying, "I am a sacred cow. Get out your wallet.”

“We all live in a house on fire, no fire department to call; no way out, just the upstairs window to look out of while the fire burns the house down with us trapped, locked in it.”