Seven Postcards from Dover

I The teacher said inner truth and the chalk said like a fresco inside the earth that no one has ever seen and one day decides to be discovered and begins to breathe— do you know what that means? II The child broke the chalk. The mother said be strong. The child said when I die I want to be a dwarf. III A detective has just drawn a circle with a piece of chalk, a private circle from which the victim will eventually look up, not at random, not at will, but when it calls to her, the chalk, the crushed bones of sea creatures who ringed the earth when it was under water. IV A man sits in the bath house in a deep tub of fizzling yellow water that surrounds every hair on his body and makes it stand upright. When the attendant comes, she will clean the tub by moving her hand slowly around the ring, like a snail. V An atoll is a ring of coral protecting a tureen of plankton. It is easy and Japanese to be sad knowing something is going to pass. He put the ring on her chalky finger. VI Long after chalk had passed out of use, carpenters still felt for it in their pockets and looked aimlessly at the sky. VII The cathedral was roofless. It began to snow inside. A half broken pillar in the nave grew taller.