Hiddensee: A Tale of the Once and Future Nutcracker

by Gregory Maguire

“Lost is not an address, it’s not a permission to fail, it’s not an excuse.”

Is it only in childhood that we are capable of taking in the whole world? What does it do to us that we briefly have that privilege? And then, what harm, when the fund of novelty in human experience runs dry?

Hard to particularize how a face grows older. Eyes, perhaps, become less romantic and more capable of scrutiny.

Without a memory, what does experience mean—or matter?

Her expression was full of purse strings, he thought; variously tightening and loosening. When her eyes were welcoming her mouth was snapped tight. When her lips softened and she bit her lower lip, her eyes went mechanical.

Resentment at being importuned was a slender reason to live, but it was better than nothing.

the rest of us aren’t so sure of our itineraries.” “Then you become your own destination,