psychological-drama

Just read The Virtue of Minding Your Own Business. Oh my, what currents run deep! Beautifully seen, beautifully told. Praise praise praise . . . Pardon my French, but you are one darn major American writer!"---Richard Bach, author of Jonathan Livingston Seagull and Illusions, on Sandcastle and Other Stories

The past is always with us. It echoes through every living moment, giving it depth and meaning beyond itself. Sometimes the past is so powerful, those echoes threaten to overwhelm the present.

Don__ hide what you have just because people tell you it__ not normal. I have known normal people_and guess what? They are as boring as hell...

Perhaps forgiveness wasn__ a singular event, but a progression, or better, a dance that took some figuring before you could perform the steps.

The road to heaven isn__ much of a road,_ he was saying. __t__ more like a dusty trail, roughly cut out through the underbrush. Most people don__ even notice it. It doesn__ look like a path at all, so they walk right by. Others see it, but don__ go down it because it__ ugly. Dirty. Difficult. Overgrown. If they took the road to heaven, their progress would be slow, maybe immeasurable. They__ have to give up a lot because the path is narrow.

Time collapsed into a delicate dark pencil brushed against oureyebrows, the emergent rumble of crowds gathering above our heads. Weslid into our costumes. Pirate, outlaw, futuristic rebels. Red,purple, gold. Chains hanging from our belts, tight black trousers. Wewere moved upstairs, closer to the stage. Finally, we heard thecannon's roar: Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome... Tanzarrecording artists... THE MASTER PLANETS!" The world shot forward. Westepped into the spotlight.

Drug addicts had their drugs. Alcoholics had their bottles. Serial killers had their murders.

The woman with the cat complex is named Mrs. Alice Plesher, but she doesn't reveal her first name to him and Sai only finds out by accident, later. Mrs. Plesher calls the paper and is put through to Sai. He has no idea why although he could guess the new guy gets all of the reporter-on-the-beat drudgery assignments until proven worthy. Alice speaks haltingly as if hardened by age and her voice reveals a rasp. Sai pictures her in a long house dress from the fifties, wide pink and white stripes fading with age---a smock of beige over the dress, a multitude of cats clinging to the fabric like stick-ons.