"Ella stood on the yellow lines in
the middle of Washington Street and stared at the backhoes devouring
Mid America Steel Corporation. More than a dozen of the machines,
with long curved and articulated steel necks, picked at concrete
bones with iron beaks. Only shattered foundations and a few chunks
of metal remained of the seventeen buildings that had once contained
Richville's flagship industry."
"'Chess is a game of beautiful and
horrible complications,' states honorable Grand Master Tyro Suzuki.
'Surreal chess is a game of dream complications.' (free translation)"
"A dove preceded the catastrophe.
A white, Middle-Eastern rock dove that flew into Marin County
from the Pacific and, after resting a few hours, flew back out
to sea with an olive leaf in its beak."
"Almost a decade in exile had swallowed
Oliver St. Clair's heart as surely as any battle-borne defeat.
The thick-burred English of the Welsh hillmen barely matched
his own Scots tongue, so that they thought Oliver as barbarous
as he knew them to be. Though he kept the faith, even the Catholicism
of St. Clydai's parish seemed alien, infused with the melancholy
of these dark hills and their bloody history."
