"When you open a book," the sentimental library posters said, "anything can happen." This was so. A book of fiction was a bomb. It was a land mine you wanted to go off. You wanted it to blow your whole day. Unfortunately, hundreds of thousands of books were duds. They had been rusting out of everyone's way for so long that they no longer worked. There was no way to distinguish the duds from the live mines except to throw yourself at them headlong, one by one. --Annie Dillard, An American Childhood

I would like to live to be a hunded because loving and being loved are so good and there are so many books; but were I to learn now that I had only a week left, I would finish today's spell of writing, have the cup of coffee that I crave and go on with the one book I'm reading. --John Tittensor, Year One: A Record

October 27, 2010

The Hotel Under the Sand

by Kage Baker

One day a storm came and swept away everything that Emma had, and everything that Emma knew. When it had done all that, it swept away Emma too. It might have been a storm with black winds, with thunder and lightning and rising waves. It might have been a storm with terrible anger and policemen coming to the door, and strangers, hospitals, courtrooms, and nightmares. It might have been a storm with soldiers, and fire, and hiding in cellars listening to shooting overhead. There are different kinds of storms. But Emma faced the storm that swept over her, and found a way to save herself.

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She wanted to cry, but Emma knew that if she started crying now for everyone and everything she had lost, she would never be able to stop crying. So she dusted herself off instead, and started walking away down the beach to explore. I have no place of my own anymore, she thought, but maybe I can make one.

The storm hadn't taken everything she had, after all. It could never take away her brave heart, or her cleverness.
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