Sublime

and read on the TV that Raven Wallace was the name of the woman who had disappeared. Ada lifted her head off the floor. The caption said that the mother of three had vanished from her own home in the middle of the afternoon. Police were asking for information. Then the words were replaced by words about smoke from the fires that were presently

ephemeral

trenchant,

Women, always the women. Thank goodness for the women.

inures

The two images fused, were inseparable, their meanings conjoined too, and I couldn’t recollect one without seeing the other. It was all the same. From time to time it occurred to me that probably my story hadn’t been very good anyway, probably wasn’t something worth showing to anyone else, was merely a thing I’d conjured up to amuse myself and pass

Once her fingers have become threads she cannot touch nor grasp a single thing. But what in any case is there for her to take hold of? There is nothing in her immediate environment to reach towards. There is absolutely nothing for her to strive for. The sight of her flailing around a dark sunken room is made doubly horrible by the fact that the

Weltschmerz

onerous: