Winter is the season of alcoholism and despair.

There have been hermaphrodites around forever, Cal. Forever. Plato said that the original human being was a hermaphrodite. Did you know that? The original person was two halves, one male, one female. Then these got separated. That's why everybody's always searching for their other half. Except for us. We've got both halves already.

Regret, already sogging me down, burst its dam. It seeped into my legs, it pooled in my heart.

There was nowhere I could go that wouldn't be you.

Now all the mute objects of my life seem to tell my story, to stretch back in time, if I look closely enough.

I'm the final clause in a periodic sentence, and that sentence begins a long time ago, in another language, and you to read it from the beginning to get to the end, which is my arrival.

We listened to them, but it was clear they'd received too much therapy to know the truth.