For In Spite Of The Snapdragons And

I Have Always Disliked The Morning, It Is Too Responsible A Time, With The Daylight Demanding That It Be 'faced' And (usually When I Wake For I Wake Late) With The Sun Already Up And In Charge Of The World, With Little Hope Of Anyone Usurping Or Challenging Its Authority. A Shot Of Light In The Face Of A Poor Waking Human Being And Another Slave Limps Wounded Into The Light-occupied Territory.

...there Must Be An Inviolate Place Where The Choices And Decisions, However Imperfect, Are The Writer's Own, Where The Decision Must Be As Individual And Solitary As Birth Or Death.

The Idea Was To Have A Basin Inverted On His Head And His Hair Cut To The Shape Of It. Skill And Money Were Not Needed. Then The Idea Grew That It Was More Convenient To Leave The Basin On His Head. Stray Thoughts Were Trimmed Along With Stray Hair; Brain-vines, Tentacles Of Thought, Were Not Encouraged To Wander. Then, In The Interests Of Human Economy, The Head Of Adaptable Man Became A Basin Of Uniform Shape—a Basin, A Crash Helmet. Safe At Last; No More Thought-cuts.

She Grew More And More Silent About What Really Mattered. She Curled Inside Herself Like One Of Those Black Chimney Brushes, The Little Shellfish You See On The Beach, And You Touch Them, And Then Go Inside And Don’t Come Out.

Every Morning I Woke In Dread, Waiting For The Day Nurse To Go On Her Rounds And Announce From The List Of Names In Her Hand Whether Or Not I Was For Shock Treatment, The New And Fashionable Means Of Quieting People And Of Making Them Realize That Orders Are To Be Obeyed And Floors Are To Be Polished Without Anyone Protesting And Faces Are To Be Made To Be Fixed Into Smiles And Weeping Is A Crime.