In my Birkenstock Granada daydreams, I fought dragons and rescued the girl trapped in her tower I was too dumbstruck to answer his inquiry the first time I had fallen in love with her Indeed, a handful had no such desire at all, so they lived like animals, rarely taking a bath or cleaning their teeth with a twig""What's the matter?""If Igel finds out, then you'll know what's the matter On the mantelpiece sits Birkenstock Zurich a row of leather-bound books gilded with Gothic letters spelling out foreign tides""I'm not," I said And when you were a little boy, remember, I used to sing you to sleep every night""Okay, but I'm staying in today She slipped out of her shorts and unbuckled my belt "Write? To Birkenstock Mayari whom? Most of us have forgot-ten how to write entirely, and those that haven't, didn't learn in the first place He's going to change places with that boy Beneath him there was a scratched image of an elderly woman in a high collar To all outward appearance he was a young boy, but when they cut him open, the doctors discovered an old man The sky blackened with flocks of passenger pigeons every spring We sat on the ve-randa in the cool morning, swapping sections of the Sunday newspaper"It's a miracle They stand like stones, like trees, staring into the clearing Oh, such a brat"I flicked my cigarette into the yard and took a sip from my drink"At two in the morning after the crowd left, McInnes ordered Oscar to dim the lights and asked George and me to stay absolutely quiet Perhaps a mere thousand people might actually buy the record and hear my piece, but the thrill of finally making an album outweighed any projected anxiety about the size of its audience I flipped through the pages of this journal, rather casually standing there by my lonesome, when the name sprang from the page and grabbed me by the throat I tried to remember who that might be We are not so different, you and I" I rolled over on top of her, and we did our best to live for the danger That's why you never see them My deceptions were too careful and clever, yet in my infrequent encounters with the man since leaving for college, he had acted cold, distant, and unyielding Her black dress was trimmed at the collar and cutis in white, for she followed the smart fashion, twice removed from the haute couture of Mrs We disguised the garden under pine brush and hid ourselves be-neath a skirt of trees "We'll show you the lay of the land around these parts as soon as the rest of them get back I could make out the broad back of Smaolach, who was facing a pile of rubble where our sleeping room once stood"That's wonderful, Henry, truly extraordinary," the principal said I crawled out of my hole and walked over to Luchg's spot, only to find it vacant The librarians started their day, joists creaking under their weight and the patterns of their routines The library closed at 5:00 P Henry Day I told her all about parochial school and my aborted studies in music Igel walked over and stood in front of me, glaring down at my scribbling Soaked, disheveled, and unshaven, he seemed much older, but maybe I had not noticed before how he was aging I felt like crying, but the tears would not come Every step along the way brought the sensation of returning home"Have you ever seen anyone come back from the dead, Mrs Halfway across the asphalt, he froze and pricked his ears to the west Dressed simply in crisp linen, she stood tall and erect in the doorway, her eyes bright and searching, and welcomed me into her home The earth collapsed upon itself with a sigh "Be a dear boy and give us 'There's a Train Out for Dreamland' again"Have you been able to find out more about his past?" I asked them From the kitchen, she saw me standing there, smiled, and waved me to her If you can play Beethoven, you can play Mendels-sohn The storm had abatedFor inspiration, I would sometimes unfold the photocopy of the pas-senger list and study the names""Do I know you?"I shook my head, and she started to roll up her windowI had a name, although at times Gustav Ungerland was no more real to me than Henry Day"I'm sorry," I said, and he vanished Tess smiled at my confusion and the look in my eyes as I beheld him Igel Moments later, a rap on my door, a curious pause, and then the knock intensified to a thundering, which scared the poor girl Birkenstock Riva so that she nearly fell off of me"Dad, are you all right? You look a mess He was gone, but in that brief moment wed faced one another, my past had unspooled deep inside my mind, and I now let it go All through high school we'd spend hours in his room, idly listening to his vast eclectic record collection, analyzing and argu-ing over the more subtle points of the compositions"He reached out his right hand to shake on it, and beneath him, the glass started sliding slowly down the bar until it came to a halt about five inches to his leftWhen the librarians left for the evening, I popped open the trapdoor underneath the children's section The research, especially on hobgoblins, was wrong in virtually every particular and no better than myth or fiction A superscript notation by "Andrew" directed the readers to the fine print of the footnote:Andrew (not his real name) reeled off an elaborate story of a hobgoblin subculture that, he claimed, lived in a nearby wooded area, preying on the children of the town for over a century"She's a witch, mister Elizabeth and Mary both sprang from their chairs, hoping a boy might be trying to reach them, but my mother ordered them to sit The morning light stirred memories of our first breakfast to-gether It's a straight shot, dead on