I speak to maps. And sometimes they say something back to me. This is not as strange as it sounds, nor is it an unheard of thing. Before maps the world was limitless. It was maps that gave it shape and made it seem like territory, like something that could be possessed, not just laid waste and plundered. Maps made places on the edges of the imagination seem graspable and placable. And later when it became necessary, geography became biology in order to construct a hierarchy in which to place the people who lived in their inaccessibility and primitiveness in other places on the map.

The Gates of Flame

“After a few days they knew they were close to the lake. The light ahead of them looked thicker, softer with the burden of water below. The thought of the lake made everyone happier.

The Gates of Flame

“After a few days they knew they were close to the lake. The light ahead of them looked thicker, softer with the burden of water below. The thought of the lake made everyone happier.

Chapter 12: Changing Tides: A Girl at Dea

“For days my mother’s fragrance lingered on the landing that ran between my parents room and mine. There were no windows there, just a bulb overhead, but it is the one part of the house where I remember there being light.

And there was wonder, too: he learned to see the wind by watching patches of ruffles on the water’s surface. To be on the sea at dawn, with the clouds blazing pink and gold, the sky all kinds of blue, the ocean reflecting everything above, as that ball of fire rose above the horizon, was like being inside a painting.