Children might or might not be a blessing, but to create them and then fail them was surely damnation.

They stared at her curiously, and she caught snatches of conversation in two or three languages. It wasn't hard to guess their content, and she smiled a bit primly. Youth, it appeared, was full of illusions as to how much sexual energy two people might have to spare while hiking forty or so kilometers a day, concussed, stunned, diseased, on poor food and little sleep, alternating caring for a wounded man with avoiding becoming dinner for every carnivore within range - and with a coup to plan for the end.

Seems like half my anxiety dreams are about airports.

I am an atheist, myself. A simple faith, but a great comfort to me, in these last days.

But pain seems to me an insufficient reason not to embrace life. Being dead is quite painless. Pain, like time, is going to come on regardless. Question is, what glorious moments can you win from life in addition to the pain?

The dead cannot cry out for justice. It is a duty of the living to do so for them.

If you're trying to take a roomful of people by surprise, it's a lot easier to hit your targets if you don't yell going through the door.