Ramasseur

..the peppermint taste lingers on his tongue long after the peppermint has disappeared; the boy looks out the window, squints into a hard winter sunlight that scatters jewels across the snowy field, and stares at the distant point where all lines meet; is this where everything comes from? or where it returns to?
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The Dead

...the blood sun begins to set behind the shed; old Danny appears in the yard, pulls up a round spruce block to sit on and lights a pipe; the boy, fatigued now, sits next to the old Irishman, stares at the place where the woodpile used to be, sees on the ground a lingering patch of snowy ice, the hidden memory of winter; how long would this have survived if the woodpile had not been disturbed?
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The Lost Man

So where am I?  How did I get here?  Have I been running from something...or come back to it?  Returned to where I began?  Impossible to say; I can remember nothing.  Nothing at all, except for a heavyset woman...looking out her window?  But at whom?  Can’t remember.  That’s because  this never happened, was just a dream. 
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Lot’s Wife

...the old woman tries to rise from her chair but has to stop halfway up and take a quick gulp of air; the old man, still sitting, does not notice,

Just as well you stayed in, he tells the boy,

...the boy avoids Grandfather’s eye so he will not see into his story; but it does no good, the man continues to tell it, Mark my words. Halloween brings out the real devils. They mingle among the ones wearing the costumes, so you can’t tell them apart.
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