Sublime

stymied

Sometime during the night, Maxine dreams she’s a mouse who’s been running at large inside the walls of a vast apartment building she understands is the U.S., venturing out into kitchens and pantries to scavenge for food, scuffling but free, and in these small hours she has been attracted by what she recognizes as a sort of humane mousetrap yet cann

spates

She reads Thoreau over wood fires at night.

Perhaps there’ll be a disaster, Carleton had said; and Thomas felt again the blow of the hooded creature fleeing Bethesda with paint on its hands. But that had been no disaster, only something strange and soon forgotten in the order and quiet of his home – so Thomas, who had a gift for self-persuasion, placidly ate a radish.