Burning Bright: A Play in Story Form

With all our horrors and our faults, somewhere in us there is a shining. That is the most important of all facts. There is a shining.

"I haven't had much time to think," he said.
"You've had all your life to think. You haven't dared."

I've given you everything a friend can give, Joe Saul - even contempt, and that's the hardest thing of all.

Now that the black is up I can speak of black, but I can't remember it very well. I can't remember how it felt now the triumph is in me.

"You do have a gift," she said. "Instinctively you know where to put the knife and how to twist it."

I don't need to hit him. I can just stand back and punch him with a word. He's old' and you can't get cured of that.

Burning Bright" is the third attempt I have made to work in this new form - the play-novelette. I don't know that anyone else has ever tried it before. Two of my previous books - 'Of Mice and Men' and 'The Moon Is Down' - essayed it.

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
-William Blake

Do you feel singled out, pinned up alone in a museum? It's time we sing this trouble out into the air and light. Else it will grow with poisoned fingers like a cancer in your mind. Rip off the cover. Let it out! Maybe you're not alone in your secret cave.