I watched my wife draw in her forces, sealing herself off from not just what I said, but from me as well, from the evening, from the days that had passed. A project of wall building, face hardening, secret fortifying of everything that mattered to her. All done without moving, an inner construction project Claire seemed to command until she was, in

The flame alphabet was the word of God, written in fire, obliterating to behold. The so-called Torah. This was public domain Jewish information, easy for Murphy to obtain. We could not say God’s true name, nor could we, if we were devoted, speak of God at all. This was basic stuff. But it was the midrashic spin on the flame alphabet that was more e

But this prayer came from my lips in a horrible voice other than Burke’s. The tones of it were weak and scared. It was a thin voice: my own. The voice I used back in the days of speech. The voice that had never worked very well or much and that sometimes repulsed me, even before it sickened anyone else. Around the burning wire I spoke this prayer i

I did not assign names to the children I saw in the woods. A remote perspective was best, sheared of sentimentality, which impedes a productive workflow. Name not that which you intend to cultivate, was the saying. Maybe it was just my saying. But cultivate is such a strong word.

Rabbi Burke did not officially exist in public. There was no such person. Our system of worship was likewise kept secret, which means that our practice at the hut suffered its share of misinformation and rumor. The more we concealed it, the more it troubled people, so they invented actions for us, ascribed false powers to the radio. It was guessed

Machineries of reason, machineries of conduct, machineries of virtue. The machine that regulates instinct, keeps one’s hands free of another man’s throat, free of one’s own. These machines have all, as someone said, gone too long in the elements. Gummed now, rusted, bloodless. I forget who said it and I no longer care.

I turned away as he finished and asked if he needed any help. The retching stopped. “Oh, goodness,” he said. “I didn’t see you there.” He coughed, swallowed, arranged his appearance. This was Murphy’s first lie.

Claire and I started making way for each other, the small courtesies one shows a sick person. Wide berths in the hallway and boundaries observed in bed. We slept in lanes, did not visit each other in the night, even for the sexless embrace, to extinguish each other’s insecurities, to see what comfort there wasn’t in someone else’s cold frame. Skill

what we want is almost never exempt from the impossible.