You Play Your Cards So Close To

Nothing [the Demon] Could Think Up Was Half As Bad As The Stuff [people] Thought Up Themselves. They Seemed To Have A Talent For It. It Was Built Into Their Design Somehow. They Were Born Into A World That Was Against Them In A Thousand Little Ways, And Then Devoted Most Of Their Energies To Making It Worse.

She Was The Storm, She Was The Lightning, She Was The Adult World With All Its Power And All Its Secrets And All Its Foolish Casual Cruelty.

Let Us Begin This Letter, This Prelude To An Encounter, Formally, As A Declaration, In The Old-fashioned Way: I Love You. You Do Not Know Me (although You Have Seen Me, Smiled At Me). I Know You (although Not So Well As I Would Like. I Want To Be There When Your Eyes Flutter Open In The Morning, And You See Me, And You Smile. Surely This Would Be Paradise Enough?). So I Do Declare Myself To You Now, With Pen Set To Paper. I Declare It Again: I Love You.

If You Dare Nothing, Then When The Day Is Over, Nothing Is All You Will Have Gained.

The World Seemed To Shimmer A Little At The Edges.