This last night we tear into each other, as if to wound, as if to find the key to everything before morning.

She lights a match in the dark hall and moves it onto the wick of the candle. Light lifts itself onto her shoulders. She is on her knees. She puts her hands on her thighs and breathes in the smell of the sulphur. She imagines she slap breathes in light.

This last night we tear into each other, as if to wound, as if to find the key to everything before morning.

Here. Where I am anonymous and alone in a white room with no history and no parading. So I can make something unknown in the shape of this room. Where I am King of Corners.

Kirpal's left hand swoops down and catches the dropped fork an inch from the floor and gently passes it into the fingers of his daughter, a wrinkle at the edge of his eyes behind his spectacles.

she had a laugh that hinted it had rolled around once or twice in the mud.

How can you smile as though your whole life hasn't capsized