“Even sound seemed to fail in this air, like the air was worn out with carrying sounds so long.”

“An Evening AirI go out in the grey eveningIn the air the odor of flowers and the sounds of lamentation.I go out into the hard loneliness of the barren field of grey eveningIn the air the odor of flowers and the sounds of lamentation.In the gathering darkness a long, swift train suddenly Passes me like a lighting.Hard and ponderous and loud are the wheels.As ponderous as the darkness, and as beautiful.I look on, enchanted, and listen to the sounds of lamentationIn the soft fragrant air.The long rails, grey-dark, smooth as a serpent, shiver, andA soft, low thing cries out in the distance,But the sounds are hard and heavy,In the air the odor of flowers and the sounds of lamentation.”

“I'm trying to quit,” he said. “Just so you know.” He lit the cigarette and inhaled so long and so deep it sounded like air being let out of a tire.”

“Even after the ringing stopped, the sound of the bell lingered through the evening gloom like the dust floating in the air.”

“The air was stifling, but he liked it because it was stifling city air, full of excitingly unpleasant smells, dangerous music, and the distant sound of warring police tribes.”

“They looked like butterflies, except that they had the long, pointed beaks of hummingbirds, and they seemed to be made out of darkness and air.”