Michael Malone - Weebly

part of his land to the federal government, whose
purposes, of course, were none of his business—if they
chose to restrict them.
In his recliner-rocker tonight, Ernest Ransom had
not retraced much more of this memory than his setting
out on that autumn walk.
It was late, and he was an early riser who tried to
be in bed by eleven and invariably got out of it by six.
He had fallen asleep almost as soon as he had leaned
back in the chair, had waked up disoriented half an
hour later, and returned to the queen-sized Marimekko
sheets.
In her aviary of a bedroom on the fourth floor of the
tallest house in Dingley Falls, old Miss Ramona Dingley
abruptly sat up. It annoyed her to find herself awake.
More and more each night, sleep escaped her an hour
or so after it was seized, as if, in anticipation of
imminent endless rest, her body could not be bothered
with nightly naps. Her brain was too anxious to learn its
ultimate destiny (if any) to want the reprieve of dreams.
Young Father Fields, who had spent that evening