"All cat stories start with this statement: "My mother, who was the first cat, told me this... - Shirley Jackson

Passing through the outskirts of the city, she thought, it's as though everything were traveling so fast that the solid stuff couldn't stand it and were going to pieces under the strain, cornices blowing off and windows caving in. She knew she was afraid to say it truly, afraid to face the knowledge that it was a voluntary neck-breaking speed, a deliberate swirling faster and faster to end in destruction.

It is a longing so intense that it creates what it desires, it cannot endure any touch of correction; it is, as I say, unspeakable.

Fear and guilt are sisters;