Words&Dirt

“The most important thing Karen carried into that place was the memory of Navidson.  And Navidson was no different.  Though it’s commonly assumed his last word was ‘care’ or the start of ‘careful.’  I would argue differently.  I believe this utterance is really just the first syllable of the very name on which his mind and heart had finally come to rest.  His only hope, his only meaning: ‘Karen.'”

––House of Leaves, by Mark Z. Danielewski, pg. 523

“Of course there always will be darkness but I realize now something inhabits it.  Historical or not.  Sometimes it seems like a cat, the panther with its moon mad gait or a tiger with stripes of ash and eyes as wild as winter oceans.  Sometimes it’s the curve of a wrist or what’s left of romance, still hiding in the drawer of some long lost nightstand or carefully drawn in the margins of an old discarded calendar.  Sometimes it’s even just a vapor trail speeding west, prophetic, over clouds aglow with dangerous light.  Of course these are only images, my images, and in the end they’re born out of something much more akin to a Voice, which though invisible to the eye and frequently unheard by even the ear still continues, day and night, year after year, to sweep through us all.

Just as you have swept through me.

Just as I now sweep through you.”

––House of Leaves, by Mark Z. Danielewski, pg. 518