Work Smoothly, Lifetime Peace
When an idea for a story comes, it almost always comes to me as a setting, or as an image. I’ve come to realize that I am more attracted to places than to people, generally, so I guess this is not surprising. I’ve several tremendous images in my head. I’ll take this as a good sign, a sign that the torpor and exhaustion that have lead to my not completing anything of value for six months are beginning to lessen, that, with summer’s ascension will come the cloudburst. Here’s hoping. The most powerful of these images is of monks on a hill. It is sunset, or just after, and it is summer. The day had been tremendously hot and humid, and violent thunderstorms had broken over their convent. With these storms, the eventide has turned sharply cooler and, below them, in the valley of a slowmoving river, fog is rising like an armada of ghosts. They have eaten their simple evening meal in deep silence, and then have come outside for evensong, and vespers. Their voices rise, my