It's all I ever really wanted, that revelation. The possibility of fixed stars.

Her fingers moved among barnacles and mussels, blue-black, sharp-edged. Neon red starfish were limp Dalis on the rocks, surrounded by bouquets of stinging anemones and purple bursts of spiny sea urchins.

She laughed so easily when she was happy. But also when she was sad.

Inside every human being, there is unlimited time and space.

His voice was cloves and nightingales, it took us to spice markets in the Celebs, we drifted with him on a houseboat beyond the Coral Sea. We were like cobras following a reed flute.

Never apologize. Never explain.

The sound of her laughter was sticky as sap, the smell of night-blooming jasmine soft as a milk bath.