Jean Toomer

“ Many a time he’s seen them drown in his dreams and has kicked about joyously in the mud for days after. One thing about him goes straight to the heart. He has an Adam’s-apple which strains sometimes as if he were painfully gulping great globules of air .. air floating shredded life-pulp. ”

“ His house is a dead thing that weights him down. He is sinking as a diver would sink in mud should the water be drawn off. Life is a murky, wiggling, microscopic water that compresses him. Compresses his helmet and would crush it the minute that he pulled his head out. He has to keep it in. Life is water that is being drawn off.
Brother, life is water that is being drawn off.
Brother, life is water that is being drawn off.
The dead house is stuffed. The stuffing is alive. It is sinful to draw one’s head out of live stuffing in a dead house. ”

“ Like most men who wear monstrous helmets, the pressure it exerts is enough to convince him of its practical infinity. And he cares not two straws as to whether or not he will ever see his wife and children again. ”