It amazes me what humans can do, even when streams are flowing down their faces and they stagger on, coughing and searching, and finding.

I wanted to drown inside a woman in the feeling and drooling of the love I could give her. I wanted her pulse to crush me with its intensity. That's what I wanted. That's what I wanted myself to be.

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

But then, is there cowardice in the acknowledgment of fear? Is there cowardice in being glad that you lived?

Rosa Hubermann was sitting on the edge of the bed with her husband's accordion tied to her chest. Her fingers hovered above the keys. She did not move. She didn't ever appear to be breathing.

***A KEY WORD*** Imagined

So I saw that there was only me. There was only me who could worry about what was happening here, inside these walls of my life. Other people had their own worlds to worry about, and in the end, they had to fend for themselves, just like us.