Eliot Schrefer

She positions herself on a stool in front of a giant washing machine, watching her garments twirl in flashing patterns of red and white on a sea of black. It subdues her, that clothes can be washed in Boston or Rome and look the same for it, that she can step on an airplane and be anywhere else in the civilized world within a day and wear the same clothes and be the same person. That the small realities stay knitted together!

Superstition, she said. Soup with a bonobo finger in it is supposed to make a pregnant woman give birth to a strong baby. Putting another finger in the bathwater keeps the baby strong. "I hope the stupid polio", I said, and surprised myself by even sort of meaning it. I kissed the top of the bonobo's head. I imagined him in his crate, crying against the bars, someone lifting him out only to chop off a finger. Plunging him back into the crate, then pulling him out a few days later to take another....

You can assume that the leaf you see let go of a branch and fall towards the ground has never been considered by any being but yourself. Catch it in your hand - or, even better, keep walking until one falls into your reach naturally - and it will have spent its whole time on the planet without ever touching the ground, only because of you.

He's extremely dehydrated and we'll need to get fluids into him as soon as possible if he's to have a hope of surviving

_the primary trait of young adult literature is that the author__ emphasis is on plot and character and not on his own brilliance. And because few people talk about whether a young adult work is commercial or literary; the two are still in sync, and everyone__ benefitting.