That's why we have memory. And the opposite of memory— hope. So things that are gone can still matter. So we can built off our pasts and make future.

Maybe this is why I sleep only a few hours a month. I don't want to die again. This has become clearer and clearer to me recently, a desire so sharp and focused I can hardly believe it's mine: I don't want to die. I don't want to disappear. I want to stay.

I'm not a general or a colonel or a builder of cities. I'm just a corpse who wants not to be.

I adapt to things quickly, including good things, which I wish I could shut off sometimes. My friends have to keep reminding me how crazy my life has become, and then it hits me fresh and I just slap my forehead and think, "Wait, what... ?"

Music? Music is life! It’s physical emotion - you can touch it! It’s neon ecto-energy sucked out of spirits and switched into sound waves for your ears to swallow. Are you telling me, what, that it’s boring? You don’t have time for it?

My friend "M" says the irony of being a zombie is that everything is funny, but you can't smile, because your lips have rotted off.

The shadows of the room pool in the lines of our faces, draining our eyes of hue. "There's nothing left worth saying.