Free The Diviners by Rick Moody

They lean so far in that you can’t look away. Somebody’s terrier, off the leash, bobs along at plaza level, in the penumbra of the towers, looking almost subatomic. The towers don’t make you want to write a sonnet. They don’t make you want to dance. They make you want to write a cost-benefit analysis.
    Or they make you want to eat. They make Vanessa want to eat, and so she’s down in the concourse underneath, a shadow city made possible by the scale of the aboveground development. There are any number of possibilities for foods that she shouldn’t eat. These foods call to her. There’s a Nathan’s Hot Dogs, there are the burger joints. She could easily eat several of those hot apple pies. But she doesn’t want McDonald’s. She has come for one thing, for one cure. The word for her cure is
doughnuts.
    Toward you, Krispy Kreme, we swim, as in the waters of the Ganges. Krispy Kreme, beacon for the forgotten and disenfranchised. Krispy Kreme, with your bounteous offerings. Who else loves so unconditionally and gives so unstintingly? Who else puts others first so graciously and humbly? You, Krispy Kreme, mother for the motherless. You stand for all embraces. You are like candlelight or overheard surf. You are like a waterfall in a sylvan interior. Krispy Kreme. From your humble origins in Winston-Salem, where Vernon Rudolph’s secret yeast-raised-doughnut recipe first caught on with consumers, through your brand-spanking-new mix plant and distribution plans in the nineteen-forties and -fifties, your expansion throughout the Southeast during the civil rights era, not to overlook the tragic passing of your founder. From your sale to the Beatrice Foods Group unto your initial public offering, a scant seven months ago. Holy syllables, holy Krispy Kreme, holy hot doughnut- machine technology, holy franchising empire.
    Just a little stand, here, beside the Rite Aid pharmacy, to which Vanessa trots with such purpose that the commuters coming up the PATH train escalators veer out of her way. Doesn’t matter that the Krispy Kreme at concourse level is neither flashy nor fashionable. She will not be diverted from the mission, which is the mission of doughnuts. Is the sign illuminated? Do you need to ask? The sign that indicates that the doughnuts are fresh. Yes, there is a
light
at Krispy Kreme, which indicates that the original glazed doughnuts of Krispy Kreme are just off the assembly line. She looks for the indicator lamp; she looks for a sympathetic light in the eyes in her fellow men and women. Yes, the light is still illuminated! How is it possible? How could they still have the doughnuts so late in the morning? Is it some kind of synchronicity? Is it a further proof of the parking-spot god, the subway-seat god, the Overeaters Anonymous god who apparently smiles on the needs of Vanessa Meandro? She is destined to have a doughnut that melts in her mouth, a doughnut that tastes like the happy ending of a romantic comedy as purveyed by a vertically integrated multinational entertainment provider under German ownership.
    The line is not long. Her cheeks are flushed. She knows that the girls at the register at Krispy Kreme will not be supermodels. She knows that they are not going to look at her with the pitiful look that she gets when she buys the five or six boxes of Entenmann’s chocolate-chip cookies at D’Agostino’s. She’s not going to get that look. It’s good to be back. She hasn’t been here since she had that meeting at Windows on the World with the guys from the digital video company.
    “Four original glazed.”
    Impatient, shoving the Jackson into the hands of the Krispy Kreme employee, Rosie. She doesn’t even wait to be in the open space of the concourse before she has one in her mouth. And here’s the lesson. The great spiritual benefit of the Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut is the sensation of nothingness. The satori that is Krispy Kreme is the obliteration of self, the silencing of the voices