When A Reader Finishes A Wonderful Story

That's All We Have, Finally, The Words, And They Had Better Be The Right Ones.

Mel Thought Real Love Was Nothing Less Than Spiritual Love. He'd Said He'd Spent Five Years In A Seminary Before Quitting To Go To Medical School. He Said He Still Looked Back On Those Years In The Seminary As The Most Important Years Of His Life.

If We're Lucky, Writer And Reader Alike, We'll Finish The Last Line Or Two Of A Short Story And Then Just Sit For A Minute, Quietly. Ideally, We'll Ponder What We've Just Written Or Read; Maybe Our Hearts Or Intellects Will Have Been Moved Off The Peg Just A Little From Where They Were Before. Our Body Temperature Will Have Gone Up, Or Down, By A Degree. Then, Breathing Evenly And Steadily Once More, We'll Collect Ourselves, Writers And Readers Alike, Get Up, "created Of Warm Blood And Nerves" As A Chekhov Character Puts It, And Go On To The Next Thing: Life. Always Life.

He Wondered If She Wondered If He Were Watching Her.

There Is No God, And Conversation Is A Dying Art.