Alice Sebold

swatting the roaches

reached out his hand

It was a hard sock in the stomach.

wielding shovels and rakes

Inside the snow globe on my father’s desk, there was a penguin wearing a red-and-white-striped scarf. When I was little my father would pull me into his lap and reach for the snow globe. He would turn it over, letting all the snow collect on the top, then quickly invert it. The two of us watched the snow fall gently around the penguin. The penguin was alone in there, I thought, and I worried for him. When I told my father this, he said, “Don’t worry, Susie; he has a nice life. He’s trapped in a perfect world.”

Life is a perpetual yesterday for us.

Life is a perpetual yesterday for us.

“People grow up by living,” I said to Franny. “I want to live.”

How’s your investigation coming?”