Apeirogon

by Colum McCann

In the painting, which appears to the side of the high altar, near the front of the chapel, Jeremiah sits, bearded and brooding, in long salmon-colored robes, his finger extended across his mouth, his eyes cast downward.

It was the sort of hospital that needed its own hospital.

The term mayday—coined in England in 1923, but derived from the French, venez m’aider, come to my aid—is always repeated three times, mayday, mayday, mayday.

If you divide death by life, you will find a circle.

Certain birds are said to sleep in mid-flight. They do so in short ten-second bursts, usually after nightfall. The bird is able to switch off one side of its brain in order to rest, while the other side continues its rhythmic vigilance to avoid crashing into a fellow flier and to watch out for predators.

Apeirogon: a shape with a countably infinite number of sides.

He had learned that the cure for fate was patience.

In certain villages the birds are caught and the names of the dead are written in dark ink on the underside of the birds’ bellies. The geese are said to bring news of the dead to the heavens.

Save us from enormities whether open or hidden.

When you divide death by life you find a circle.

The scientists, at the Institute of Applied Physics at the University of Bonn, suggested that flowers emit a whine when their leaves are cut, and that trees can warn each other of approaching swarms of insects, and that the scent of fresh-cut grass comes from a secretion system within the grass blades.