Madi’s Reviews > Duma Key > Status Update

I realized the shells were talking in a voice I recognized. I should have; it was my own. Had I always known that? I suppose I had. On some level, unless we’re mad, I think most of us know the various voices of our own imaginations.

I scratched at my right arm, passed through it, and [...] found only my ribs. I flipped back the cover of my pad to the first sheet.
Start with a blank surface.
It called to me, as I was sure such blank sheets had once called to her.
Fill me up. Because white is the absence of memory, the color of can’t remember. Make. Show. Draw. And when you do, the itch will go away. For awhile the confusion will subside.

“Perhaps you’d read me a poem this afternoon,” she said. “Your choice. I miss them so. I could do without Oprah, but a life without books is a thirsty life, and one without poetry is...” She laughed. It was a bewildered sound that hurt my heart. “It’s like a life without pictures, don’t you think? Or don’t you?”

“Take it up again,” Kamen advised. “You need hedges.”
“Hedges,” I said, bemused.
“Yes, Edgar,” He looked surprised and a little disappointed, as if I had failed to understand a very simple concept. “Hedges against the night.”