It Was A Splendid Summer Morning And

A Collection Of Short Stories Is Generally Thought To Be A Horrendous Clinker; An Enforced Courtesy For The Elderly Writer Who Wants To Display The Trophies Of His Youth, Along With His Trout Flies.

There Is A Terrible Sameness To The Euphoria Of Alcohol And The Euphoria Of Metaphor.

My God, The Suburbs! They Encircled The City's Boundaries Like Enemy Territory And We Thought Of Them As A Loss Of Privacy, A Cesspool Of Conformity And A Life Of Indescribable Dreariness In Some Split-level Village Where The Place Name Appeared In The New York Times Only When Some Bored Housewife Blew Off Her Head With A Shotgun.

The World That Was Not Mine Yesterday Now Lies Spread Out At My Feet, A Splendor. I Seem, In The Middle Of The Night, To Have Returned To The World Of Apples, The Orchards Of Heaven. Perhaps I Should Take My Problems To A Shrink, Or Perhaps I Should Enjoy The Apples That I Have, Streaked With Color Like The Evening Sky.

Then It Is Dark; It Is A Night Where Kings In Golden Suits Ride Elephants Over The Mountains.