Those blue, blue eyes, icy blue, looking back at me as if I could warm them up. They’re pretty powerful, you know, those eyes, pretty beautiful, too.

I remember the lights turning into blurs of blazing fire. I remember the air-conditioning chilling my arms. The smell of coffee smudging into the smell of eucalyptus.

It didn't make me glow. I felt more like I was fading away, like the world had forgotten me.

The sand stretched out gray and ghostlike and illuminated, a column of light leading forward. It was like something a dead person would see, a tunnel leading toward heaven.

You smiled then, and your whole face changed with it. It kind of lit up, like there were sunbeams coming from inside you.

Your beautiful mouth was moving like a caterpillar. I reached out and tried to catch it.

Nobody's bought this land. And no one's going to want it either. It's dying land, lonely land." "Like me, then," I said. "Yes, like you." You chewed the corner of your lip. "You both need saving.