The Elementals

by Michael McDowell

Daylight had not brought a solution, but it had accorded indifference.

“To have a family is real strange,” said India thoughtfully. “All these people you wouldn’t have anything to do with except that they’re related to you.

Days at Beldame were so exquisitely dull and stuffy, so brightly illumined and so hot to the touch, that the quivers and fretwork of emotion were quite burned away.

India had previously entertained no sympathy for the Southern way of life, with its pervasive friendliness, its offhanded viciousness, its overwhelming lassitude.

Worry, clever thought, conversation all were crushed by the weight of the atmosphere.

“What’s in that house, child, knows more than you know. What’s in that house don’t come out of your mind.

anyone who could perform menial tasks in a menial’s capacity without loss of dignity was someone to be admired and wondered at.

“In the car Lawton said to me there was no such thing as a former alcoholic, there was only alcoholics that told people they weren’t drinking any more. He said I could have the house if I put up maps in the hall so I wouldn’t get lost after my fourth bottle of the day.”