She Is Stunned That In This Town

I Would Not Send A First Story Anywhere. I Would Give Myself Time To Write A Number Of Stories.

I Dream Of Writing A Book Like Lovers Some Day. It Is So Spare But So Rich. It Is History Made Intimate, And A Masterpiece Of Compression.

In The Days That Follow, He Begins To Remember Things About Moushumi, Images That Come To Him Without Warning While He Is Sitting At His Desk At Work, Or During A Meeting, Or Drifting Off To Sleep, Or Standing In The Mornings Under The Shower. They Are Scenes He Has Carried Within Him, Buried But Intact, Scenes He Has Never Thought About Or Had Reason To Conjure Up Until Now.

In Fiction, Plenty Do The Job Of Conveying Information, Rousing Suspense, Painting Characters, Enabling Them To Speak. But Only Certain Sentences Breathe And Shift About, Like Live Matter In Soil.

He Tries To Peel The Image From The Sticky Yellow Backing, To Show Her The Next Time He Sees Her, But It Clings Stubbornly, Refusing To Detach Cleanly From The Past.