OK, or she was a gleaming instrument until the moment she shut her bedroom door at night, at which point she exploded into a white mist of tears and strange gasping sounds that were a million years before or after language. For she had spent the last two years letting things sink in, and now . . . guess what, bitch! Further absorption was no longer possible! All day she drank in information, but no one was telling them the main thing. No one was telling them how long they would have her, how long the open cloud of her would last.