The Book of Form and Emptiness

by Ruth Ozeki

WHAT MAKES A PERSON want so much? What gives things the power to enchant, and is there any limit to the desire for more? Annabelle had no time to ponder these questions, because the minute she laid eyes on the little snow globe, sitting on the dusty shelf amid the piles of chipped plates and Pyrex cookware, she was helpless to resist. The small plastic sea turtle just glowed with life, swimming in its glass orb in front of a piece of bleached coral, calling out to her to rescue it from all the thrift store clutter. She’d always had a thing for sea turtles. They were so slow and graceful, with such big, sad eyes, not to mention they were endangered. The base of the globe looked like an algae-covered rock, with conch shells and a plastic starfish stuck to it, and another bigger sea turtle, too, which must be the little one’s mother.

it was understood by everyone, even the most clueless, that Benny and his family were to be their ostracized Other, against whose strangeness they could define their collective normality.