Rejection Is A Cancer, Edie. It Eats

My Fingers Positively Itched To Drift At Length Along Their Spines, To Arrive At One Whose Lure I Could Not Pass, To Pluck It Down, To Inch It Open, Then To Close My Eyes And Inhale The Soul-sparking Scent Of Old And Literate Dust.

Nell Was Not One For Friends And Had Never Hidden Her Distaste For Most Other Humans, Their Neurotic Compulsion For The Acquisition Of Allies.

And Then He Was Kissing Her, And She Was Struck By His Nearness, His Solidity, His Smell. It Was Of The Garden And The Earth And The Sun. When Cassandra Opened Her Eyes, She Realized She Was Crying. She Wasn't Sad, Though, These Were The Tears Of Being Found, Of Having Come Home After A Long Time Away.

Cassandra Wondered At The Mind's Cruel Ability To Toss Up Flecks Of The Past. Why, As She Neared Her Life's End, Her Grandmother's Head Should Ring With The Voices Of People Long Since Gone. Was It Always This Way? Did Those With Passage Booked On Death's Silent Ship Always Scan The Dock For Faces Of The Long-departed?

In Each Man's Heart There Lies A Hole. A Dark Abyss Of Need, The Filling Of Which Takes Precedence Over All Else.