“Damen Trent pushed his fat fingers between the blinds, peering across the street. Sure enough, all the windows of the Mekinet News building were in darkness.”

“With my hand in his, I looked at all the apartment buildings with rushes of love, peering in the wide streetside windows that revealed living rooms painted in dark burgandies and matte reds.”

“Groping blindly in the darkness, he sank between the white mounds of cool feathers and slept as he fell, across the bed or with his head downward, pushing deep into the softness of the pillows, as if in sleep he wanted to drill through, to explore completely, that powerful massif of feather bedding rising out of the night.”

“The streets were awash with blues and grays – suspended in the air, bouncing off buildings, reflecting off car windows – as Brooklyn neared nighttime.”

“Damen pushed himself up on an elbow, and propped his head on his hand, his fingers in his hair. He saw that Laurent was looking at him. Not watching him, as he did sometimes, but looking at him, as a man might look at a carving that has caught his attention.”

“A scattering of pinpoint lights shows up in the blackness ahead. A town or village straddling the highway. The indicator on the speedometer begins to lose ground. The man glances in his mirror at the girl, a little anxiously as if this oncoming town were some kind of test to be met. An illuminated road sign flashes by: CAUTION! MAIN STREET AHEAD - SLOW UP The man nods grimly, as if agreeing with that first word. But not in the way it is meant.The lights grow bigger, spread out on either side. Street lights peer out here and there among the trees. The highway suddenly sprouts a plank sidewalk on each side of it. Dark store-windows glide by.With an instinctive gesture, the man dims his lights from blinding platinum to just a pale wash. A lunch-room window drifts by. ("Jane Brown's Body")”