It's a lot easier, she realized, to be on the verge of something than to actually be it. This would still take time.

A snowball in the face is surely the perfect beginning to a lasting friendship.

Somewhere, far down, there was an itch in his heart, but he made it a point not to scratch it. He was afraid of what might come leaking out.

Why can’t the world hear? I ask myself. Within a few moments I ask it many times. Because it doesn’t care, I finally answer, and I know I’m right. It’s like I’ve been chosen. But chosen for what? I ask.

She closes the door completely, and I crouch there. I allow myself to fall forward and rest my head on the door frame. My breath bleeds. My heartbeat drowns my ears.

When I recollect her, I see a long list of colors, but it's the three in which I saw her in the flesh that resonate the most. Sometimes I manage to float far above those three moments. I hang suspended, until a septic truth bleeds toward clarity. That's when I see them formulate: THE COLORS RED: [rectangle] WHITE: [circle] BLACK: [swastika] They fall on top of each other. The scribbled signature black, onto the blinding global white, onto the thick soupy red.

You don't shoot a dog when it is already dead.