“That is why, walking across a school campus on this particular December morning, I keep searching the sky. As if I expected to see, rather like hearts, a lost pair of kites hurrying toward heaven.”

“And when that happens, I know it. A message saying so merely confirms a piece of news some secret vein had already received, severing from me an irreplaceable part of myself, letting it loose like a kite on a broken string. That is why, walking across a school campus on this particular December morning, I keep searching the sky. As if I expected to see, rather like hearts, a lost pair of kites hurrying towards heaven.”

“They strolled toward town, stopping now and then to let him catch his breath and to gaze upward, for the west Kansas sky is black velvet on clear, cool December nights, and the Milky Way is strung across it like the diamond necklace of a crooked banker's mistress.”

“When I get out of the rickshaw I walk slowly towards the school building, taking small steps. All around me girls are running: in the morning the young are as noisy as a flock of sparrows.”

“A politician lost an argument; he went on a rampage with his fists pointed towards the sky—a move which amounts to a search for a new self.”

“The sky is grey, the air hot. I walk back across the mown lawn loving the smell and the houses so completely it leaves my heart empty.”