It was almost funny. Life seemed downright accidental in its brevity, and death a punch line to a lousy joke.

Stuart must have sensed my despair from the way I began lightly banging my forehead on the table.

The truth was that she had managed to betray everyone by doing nothing. No one in history had ever done less and yet been so wrong. Not cheating on a non-boyfriend with the non-boyfriend of a friend. The pressure of thinking that one through made her swollen body ache.

I like you because you were mad. And you're pretty. And pretty sane for a mad person.

The essay I had to read was called, "An Essay on Criticism" by Alexander Pope. The first challenge was that the essay was, in fact, a very long poem in "heroic couplets". If something is called an essay, it should be an essay.

I try to shake it loose-but these ideas, they cling. It's like I'm shackled to them with an iron chain. They rattle along behind me, dragging against the ground, always reminding me of their presence.

What tinfoil?" he asked.