Front

He felt her there, saw her without opening his eyes, her hair burnt by chemicals to a _____ straw, her eyes with a kind of cataract unseen.

Back

brittle

Front

Because you're afraid, he thought. A child _____ illness, afraid to call because after a moment's discussion, the conversation would run.

Back

feigning

Front

Seen a burnt house? It ______ for days. This fire'll last me my life. Been trying to put it out, in my mind, all night.

Back

smolders

Front

Faint drift of greenish _____ smoke, like a huge October leaf blowing away.

Back

luminescent

Front

She went out of the room and did nothing to the _____ and came back. "That's my favorite program."

Back

parlor

Front

Mildred ran. The _____ voices stopped yelling in the parlor.

Back

yammering

Front

In the 20th century, speed up your camera. Books cut shorter. Condensations. Digests. ______. Everything boils down to the gag.

Back

tabloids

Front

Magazines became a blend of vanilla tapioca. Books, so the snobbish critics said, were dishwater.

Back

critics

Front

The zipper displaces the button, and a man lacks time to think while dressing at dawn, a philosophical hour, thus a _____ hour.

Back

melancholy

Front

Whirl man's mind around so fast under the pumping hands of publishers, _____, broadcasters that the centrifuge flings off all unnecessary thought.

Back

exploiters