My lover is experiencing reverse evolution.

Language is the ticket to plot and character, after all, because both are built out of language.

I was with them for all of it, but more like an echo than a participant.

...a Dorito asks nothing of you, which is its great gift. It only asks that you are not there.

Light is good company, when alone; I took my comfort where I found it, and the warmest yellow bulb in the living-room lamp had become a kind of radiant babysitter all its own.

You're the perfect girl', he said, rubbing his chin. 'You expect nothing.

My genes, my love, are rubber bands and rope; make yourself a structure you can live inside. Amen." — Aimee Bender (Willful Creatures: Stories)