But then I think about my sister and what a shell-less turtle she was and how she wanted me to be one too. C'mon, Lennie, she used to say to me at least ten times a day. C'mon Len. And that makes me feel better, like it's her life rather than her death that is now teaching me how to be, who to be.

And why do English people sound smarter than the rest of us? Like they should be awarded the Nobel Prize for a simple greeting?

I've no use for talking, would just as soon store paper clips in my mouth.

We were all heading for each other on a collision course, no matter what. Maybe some people are just meant to be in the same story.

When I'm with him, there is someone with me in my house of grief, someone who knows its architecture as I do, who can walk with me, from room to sorrowful room, making the whole rambling structure of wind and emptiness not quite as scary, as lonely as it was before.

People die, I think, but your relationship with them doesn't. It continues and is ever-changing.

According to all the experts, it's time for me to talk about what I'm going through... I can't. I'd need a new alphabet, one made of falling, of tectonic plates shifting, of the deep devouring dark.