The narrator blames the birds. And you want to blame the birds as well. I blamed the birds for a long time. But in this story everyone is hungry, even the birds. And at this point in the story so many things have gone wrong, so many bad decisions made, that it’s a wonder anyone would want to continue reading.

From the landscape: a sense of scale. From the dead: a sense of scale.

The light is no mystery, the mystery is that there is something to keep the light from passing through.

The entire history of human desire takes about seventy minutes to tell. Unfortunately, we don’t have that kind of time.

Here is the repeated image of the lover destroyed.

We can do anything. It’s not because our hearts are large, they’re not, it’s what we struggle with. The attempt to say Come over. Bring your friends. It’s a potluck, I’m making pork chops, I’m making those long noodles you love so much.

Wearing your clothes or standing in the shower for over an hour, pretending that this skin is your skin, these hands your hands, these shins, these soapy flanks