“The narrator blames the birds. And you want to blame the birds as well. I blamed the birds for a long time. But in this story everyone is hungry, even the birds. And at this point in the story so many things have gone wrong, so many bad decisions made, that it’s a wonder anyone would want to continue reading.”

“Imagine that the world is made out of love. Now imagine that it isn’t. Imagine a story where everything goes wrong, where everyone has their back against the wall, where everyone is in pain and acting selfishly because if they don’t, they’ll die. Imagine a story, not of good against evil, but of need against need against need, where everyone is at cross-purposes and everyone is to blame.”

“You wanted happiness, I can’t blame you for that, and maybe a mouth sounds idiotic when it blathers on about joy but tell me you love this, tell me you’re not miserable.”

“I’ve been rereading your story. I think it’s about me in a way that might not be flattering, but that’s okay. We dream and dream of being seen as we really are and then finally someone looks at us and sees us truly and we fail to measure up. Anyway: story received, story included. You looked at me long enough to see something mysterioso under all the gruff and bluster. Thanks. Sometimes you get so close to someone you end up on the other side of them.”

“Every morning the maple leaves.Every morning another chapter where the hero shiftsfrom one foot to the other. Every morning the same bigand little words all spelling out desire, all spelling outYou will be alone always and then you will die.So maybe I wanted to give you something more than a catalogof non-definitive acts,something other than the desperation.Dear So-and-So, I’m sorry I couldn’t come to your party.Dear So-and-So, I’m sorry I came to your partyand seduced youand left you bruised and ruined, you poor sad thing.You want a better story. Who wouldn’t?A forest, then. Beautiful trees. And a lady singing.Love on the water, love underwater, love, love and so on.What a sweet lady. Sing lady, sing! Of course, she wakes the dragon.Love always wakes the dragon and suddenlyflames everywhere.I can tell already you think I’m the dragon,that would be so like me, but I’m not. I’m not the dragon.I’m not the princess either.Who am I? I’m just a writer. I write things down.I walk through your dreams and invent the future. Sure,I sink the boat of love, but that comes later. And yes, I swallowglass, but that comes later.Let me do it right for once,for the record, let me make a thing of cream and stars that becomes,you know the story, simply heaven.Inside your head you hear a phone ringingand when you open your eyesonly a clearing with deer in it. Hello deer.Inside your head the sound of glass,a car crash sound as the trucks roll over and explode in slow motion.Hello darling, sorry about that.Sorry about the bony elbows, sorry welived here, sorry about the scene at the bottom of the stairwelland how I ruined everything by saying it out loud.Especially that, but I should have known.Inside your head you heara phone ringing, and when you open your eyes you’re washing upin a stranger’s bathroom,standing by the window in a yellow towel, only twenty minutes awayfrom the dirtiest thing you know.All the rooms of the castle except this one, says someone, and suddenlydarkness,suddenly only darkness.In the living room, in the broken yard,in the back of the car as the lights go by. In the airportbathroom’s gurgle and flush, bathed in a pharmacy ofunnatural light,my hands looking weird, my face weird, my feet too far away.I arrived in the city and you met me at the station,smiling in a waythat made me frightened. Down the alley, around the arcade,up the stairs of the buildingto the little room with the broken faucets, your drawings, all your things,I looked out the window and saidThis doesn’t look that much different from home,because it didn’t,but then I noticed the black sky and all those lights.We were inside the train car when I started to cry. You were crying too,smiling and crying in a way that made meeven more hysterical. You said I could have anything I wanted, but Ijust couldn’t say it out loud.Actually, you said Love, for you,is larger than the usual romantic love. It’s like a religion. It’sterrifying. No onewill ever want to sleep with you.Okay, if you’re so great, you do it—here’s the pencil, make it work …If the window is on your right, you are in your own bed. If the windowis over your heart, and it is painted shut, then we are breathingriver water.Dear Forgiveness, you know that recentlywe have had our difficulties and there are many thingsI want to ask you.I tried that one time, high school, second lunch, and then again,years later, in the chlorinated pool.I am still talking to you about help. I still do not havethese luxuries.I have told you where I’m coming from, so put it together.I want more applesauce. I want more seats reserved for heroes.Dear Forgiveness, I saved a plate for you.Quit milling around the yard and come inside.”

“This is my favorite part. It starts and ends here. The pebbles shine, the plan worked, Hansel Triumphant. Lesson number one: be sneaky and have a plan. But the stupid boy goes back, makes the rest of the story postscript and aftermath. He shouldn’t have gone back. And this is the second lesson I took from the story: when someone is trying to ditch you, kill you, never go back.”

“I never liked that ending either. More love streaming out the wrong way, and I don't want to be the kind that says the wrong way. But it doesn't work, these erasures, this constant refolding of the pleats. There were some nice parts, sure, all lemondrop and mellonball, laughing in silk pajamas and the grain of sugar on the toast, love love or whatever, take a number. I'm sorry it's such a lousy story.”