"Sophia tried not to stare at the
cut on the clerk's finger. It had opened in the warm humid air of
WorldWide Aquarium and Pet Supply and fat drops fell, thick and
red, on the damp linoleum floor."
"She brushes her hands over the bottles
with the reverence of an artist, caressing them with her wrinkled
skin. You always laughed at her as a child, silly Auntie Fay with
her carefully dusted collection. As teenagers the cousins all called
it the Liquor Museum; she never drank any of it. As far as you know,
she still doesn't."
"It is a tale they tell of the clockwork
worlds, where the sun and planets and the starry firmament swing
around the earth on titanic gears of brass and steel, like an immense
orrey. The music of their turning, tooth ringing on tooth, ratchets
ticking and chains clanking, fills the universe with harmonious
and mathematical sound, and delights the clockwork citizens of the
earth."
