Goodbye, Papa, you saved me. You taught me to read. No one can play like you. I'll never drink champagne. No one can play like you." -Liesel

People die of broken hearts. They have heart attacks. And it's the heart that hurts most when things go wrong and fall apart.

He prefers not to ruin things with any more questions. What it is is what it is.

Trust was accumulated quickly, due primarily to the brute strength of the man's gentleness, his thereness. (p.36)

So many humans. So many colours. They keep triggering inside me. They harass my memory. I see them tall in their heaps, all mounted on top of each other. There is air like plastic, a horizon like setting glue. There are skies manufactured by people, punctured and leaking, and there are soft, coal-coloured clouds, beating, like black hearts. And then. There is death. Making his way through all of it. On the surface: unflappable, unwavering. Below: unnerved, untied, and undone.

The pages and the words are my world, spread out before your eyes and for your hand to touch. Vaguely, I can see you face looking down into me, as I look back. Do you see my eyes?

I'd been in love with her for years. I never left this suburban town. I didn't go to university. I went to Audrey.