At that moment I had a thrilling sharp intuition. I knew it as if I held it in my hands: In the gloom of death that surrounded the two of us, we were just at the point of approaching and negotiating a gentle curve. If we bypassed it, we would split off into different directions. In that case, we would forever remain just friends.

Why were we so far apart, even when we were together? It was a nice loneliness, like the sensation of washing your face in cold water.

It was so gorgeous it almost felt like sadness.

Over and over, we begin again.

With a cold"--she spoke evenly, lowering her eyes a little--"now is the hardest time. Maybe even harder than dying. But this is probably as bad as it can get. You might come to fear the next time you get a cold; it will be as bad as this, but if you just hold steady, it won't be. For the rest of your life. That's how it works. You could take the negative view and live in fear: Will it happen again? But it won't hurt so much if you just accept it as a part of life." With that she looked up at me, smiling.

I really believe that no matter how old people get, they tend to change in certain ways depending on how people treat them - they change their colors.

Good tea is eloquent enough, it turns out, to change a person's mind.