I DON'T belong in here with all these old people. Mary put Daddy and me in here because she didn't want us to live with her anymore. She said it was because she couldn't take care of us, because Daddy was sick and I needed a nurse to watch after me...

O SCAR POPHAM stood gazing at the huge Northern Pike mounted above the mantle of the lodge fireplace and read again the plaque's inscription: "Taken from Lake Carlana, 1932, by Oscar Popham and sons."

THE FOG had rolled in from the coast in the twilight, a vaporous wave gathering substance in the purpling dusk. By nightfall it had become an impenetrable shroud lying low across the valley...

The boulevard lights bounce from the pavement; The walkers speed their pace as the night chills. Long black hairs glued to blue-painted eyelids, Their blanched faces see only the darkness. They flaunt a bareness, a child's toy lost, And pretend the innocence it cries for...