Sublime

A thrilling sensation

To a certain cross section of clerks in that city of rubber stamps, carbon paper, and spindles, he had become a familiar figure, a slender, tall twenty-year-old with nice manners and a rumpled suit, appearing in the middle of a stifling afternoon, looking painfully cheerful. He would doff his hat. The clerk or secretary—a woman, more often than not

Humor temporarily shuts down the commonsense program in your moist robot brain and boots the random idea generator.

“Oh, monsters are scared,” said Lettie. “That’s why they’re monsters. And as for grown-ups . . .” She stopped talking, rubbed her freckled nose with a finger. Then, “I’m going to tell you something important. Grown-ups don’t look like grown-ups on the inside either. Outside, they’re big and thoughtless and they always know what they’re doing. Insid

“Poo-tee-weet?”

I told her, the fool—safest place for a firecracker is out in the open.”