An aged monk led me to the infirmary. "He's got the place to himself. Once the other invalids learned there was a dragon coming they miraculously got well! The lame could walk and the blind decided they didn't really need to see. He's a panacea.

More insomniacs!' cried the doctor. 'Come in, come in".

Miracles are like meatballs, because nobody can exactly agree on what they are made of, where they come from, or how often they should appear.

For the merest moment I couldn't breathe. Something inside me quivered, some oud string plucked by his words, and if I breathed it would stop.

He did not know the truth of me, yet he had perceived something true about me that no one else had ever noticed. And in spite of that—or perhaps because of it—he believed me good, believed me worth taking seriously, and his belief, for one vertiginous moment, made me want to be better than I was.

I was drawn to his aloofness, the way cats gravitate toward people who’d rather avoid them.

The truth may not be told. Here is an acceptable lie.