Randal Neblock

“The beach is not a place to work; to read, write or to think.”
― Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Gift from the Sea

“You is getting nosier than a parker.”
― Roald Dahl, The BFG

“Most men lead lives of aimless distraction.”
― Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here for?

“She died."
I had to prompt him.
"Soon after?"
"In the early hours of February the nineteenth, 1916." I tried to see the expression on his face, but it was too dark. "There was a typhoid epidemic. She was working in a hospital."
"Poor girl."
"All past. All under the sea."
"You make it seem present."
"I do not wish to make you sad."
"The scent of lilac."
"Old man's sentiment. Forgive me."
There was a silence between us. He was staring into the night. The bat flitted so low that I saw its silhouette for a brief moment against the Milky Way.
"Is this why you never married?"
"The dead live."
The blackness of the trees. I listened for footsteps, but none came. A suspension.
"How do they live?"
And yet again he let the silence come, as if the silence would answer my questions better than he could himself; but just when I had decided he would not answer, he spoke.
"By love.”
― John Fowles, The Magus