He kissed back, all the pages spread out around us like riddles waiting to be solved. Let them wait. Let my genes unravel, my hinges come loose. If my fate rests in the hands of a madman, let death come and bring its worse. I'll take the ruined craters of laboratories, the dead trees, this city with ashes in the oxygen, if it means freedom. I'd sooner die here than live a hundred years with wires in my veins.

Even the human race can't claim to be natural anymore. We are fake, dying things. How fitting that I would end up in this sham of a marriage.

The seeds are tiny, unborn things, and I resent them. They'll be planted and they'll grow into exactly what they're meant to be.

The months fall to shards at my feet.

There's a sort of dead passion in him. A spark that, had he more years to live, would be a wildfire.

Maybe it is desperation. Maybe we can't let things fall apart without trying. We can't let go of the people we love.

Forget who you are and what you think is there, and you'll discover things that don't exist to be known.