They had already said good night some minutes earlier when the boy and girl heard their father's voice in the dark.

"Kids, I just remembered - I have some good news and some bad news. Which do you want first?"

It was his daughter who spoke. "Let's get it over with," she said. "Let's get the bad news over with."

The father smiled. They are all right, he decided. My kids are as right as this rain. He smiled at the exact spots he knew their heads were turned to his, and doubted he would ever feel - not better, but more than he did now.

"I lied," he said. "There is no bad news."

- Amy Hempel, "Today Will Be a Quiet Day"


Amy Hempel asked me how I know that the things that happen to me aren't good. She described first sex with the sentence "We take the length of the couch, squirming like maggots in ashes."

Amy Hempel said "I know that homes burn and that you should think what to save before they start to. Not because, in the heat of it, everything looks as valuable as everything else. But because nothing looks worth the bother, not even your life."


I need to remind myself that sleeping, working, and eating are more important than reading Hempel.