People left a lot of things behind when they went in the water. Their clothes, their stuff, their makeup, their fixed-up hair, their voices, their hearing, their sight—at least as the normally experienced them.

She wondered again about her inclination to wish for things that made her so deeply unhappy.

People said things they didn't mean all the time. Everybody else in the world seemed able to factor it in. But not Lena. Why did she believe the things people said? Why did she cling to them so literally? Why did she think she knew people when she clearly didn't? Why did she imagine that the world didn't change, when it did? Maybe she didn't change. She believed what people said and she stayed the same." (Lena, 211)

Carmen sat up when she heard a familiar trill from her computer. It was an instant message from Bee. Beezy3: Packing. Do you have my purple sock with the heart on the ankle? Carmabelle: No. Like I'd wear your socks. Carmen looked from her computer screen down to her feet. To her dismay, her socks were two faintly different shades of purple. She rotated her foot to get a view of her anklebone. Carmabelle: Ahem. Might possibly have sock.

So far, she’d been her usual lame self: solitary and routine-loving, carefully avoiding any path that might lead to spontaneous human interaction. Lena Kaligaris

Someday was the thing he had, because it was a lot harder to ruin than today.

The dreams weren’t as pleasing when they had no chance of coming true