Afterward I told his widow, "Your husband is dead, but at least he died laughing.' I think she took some comfort in that. It is the second-best way to die, Will Henry." He did not say what the best way was.

There was, like, this black hole where the world used to be, and we were both falling toward it. What could we hold on to?

I'm one, too," he said. "What?" He spit a wad of blood and mucus into the dirt. "A virgin." What a shock. "What makes you think I'm a virgin?" I asked. "You wouldn't have hit me if you weren't.

When the moment comes to stop running from your past, to turn around and face the thing you thought you could not face--the moment when your life teeters between giving up and getting up--when that moment comes, and it always comes, if you can't get up and you can't give up either, here's what you do: Crawl.

Time for the world to end.

There are those who labor in the darkness, that the rest of us might live in the light.

The next time you better have a good reason," I tease him. "Okay." He kisses me again. "Reason?" I ask softly. "Um. You're really pretty?" "That's a good one. I don't know if it's true, but it's good.