And yet there was indeed shame in his game

“He splits hairs until there are no longer any hairs to split, and the mental gesture becomes merely the making of agitated passes over a complete and disconcerting baldness.”

she was a she, not a he, and blessed in her unremitting ability to cut to the quick. Go West, young man, and follow her until the trail that ought to go cold just consumes itself instead. find one who will encircle you in wit and barbed repartee to a degree that will make you dizzy with sustaining envy and want to tickle more keys, pull more out of your mind, some of which might stick, to the page if not yet the brains of the readers for which you yearn like a fever does to break. And still she’ll be so far ahead of you, a glimpse omitting itself behind a sightline, then a long shadow cast at six o clock against your squint, and the mind in the body from which the shadow is cast is back on the move, gobbling up so much new ground that you won’t even countenance a vexing idea of catching up.

Being caught up, entangled, beholden as if by a vexing secret spell: yes that happens, often and often enough still more. Put down she’s book and go field dress a pheasant, taking from its crop the makings of a glaze that might be sautéed in oil, reduced down, and brushed on its naked hairless broken down body to make the skin steam and crackle. Spit out the shot, as one does, without complaint or pageantry. It is fall in the northern plains and shots ring out, as they are wont to do. The black lamb doesn’t budge, and the grey falcon, circling above, has not yet discovered the gyres it will make elastic. Stoke the fire and read on - only twelve hundred and ninety more pages to get lost in.