Sublime

O’Connor’s “Good Country People,”

each of us a potential suspect or witness, absorbing the aftershock of murder: the awful truth of how swiftly a living, laughing, loving, breathing human being can become a corpse.

Easily, quietly, Suicide Day became a part of the fabric of life up in the Bottom of Medallion, Ohio.

Picture the room you’re in right now; maybe it’s the kitchen, or maybe you’re on the train. Now picture the world outside your frame that’s just slightly out of view. Maybe it’s the next train car or the outside of your house just below the windows. Now imagine there’s a serial killer there, tracking your movements and counting down the days or hou

And that key, that tiny symbol of her life, suddenly will not cease its bleeding, will not cease to give the cry that something is wrong. A woman may try to hide from the devastations of her life, but the bleeding, the loss of life’s energy, will continue until she recognizes the predator for what it is and contains

Her public reputation, like Demeter’s daughter, crawls back up from the underworld.

duplicitous