learn for learning’s sake—which was how it ought to be. The tick-tock curriculum had dissolved and been replaced by activities improvised from day to day by teachers and parents: hiking in the mountains, doing art projects about the Cloud Ark, talking with psychologists about death, reading favorite books.

sideways so

deflection of her eyes,

save at the neck.

It struck Dinah as odd that they were talking about such an event so matter-of-factly. But there was no other way to address it. Emotions were not large enough to encompass such a thing.

When he came to his senses, he was aware that a large number of telephones were singing their little electronic songs. Including his. The birth cry of a new age.

“Tensegrity.”

“Those of us who are going to live,” Dinah said, “have to start living by our own lights.”

“A better analogy might be to a burned-down stump being used to ignite a new candle.