regeneration.

"Those history books you get in school say that railroad sharpshooters killed off all the buffalo, but that's not true."My father leans up against the door and closes his eyes. "Most of them just took off and never came back."
... When I try to shift from first to second, the sound is so sudden and frightening, I forget about the clutch and the gas, and the truck dies and drifts off onto the shoulder of the road. I take a deep breath and look around. The buffalo are gone.
"Just like that." My father looks out the window at the empty prairies. "Soon as the smart ones got a good look at Whites, they took off."
"So, where'd they go?"
"That's the mistake we made." My father settles into his seat, pulls his cap down, and closes his eyes. "We should have gone with them."
I try again, and this time I get from first gear into second. I see my father smile, so I go for third.


From Tom King's "Truth and Bright Water"



"... And suddenly I saw not only that we weren't the measure of all things, but that there was no measure."
"And yet you say nothing changed?"
"Nothing changed in England. And I don't know why. I think partly just the sheer force of other people's expectations. You know you're walking around with a mask on, and you desperately want to take it off and you can't because everybody else thinks it's your face."
"And now?"
"I don't know. I think perhaps the patients've... have done for me what I couldn't do for myself." He smiled. "You see healing does go on, even if not in the expected direction."


From Pat Barker's "Regeneration"