They did not submit to the obvious alternative, which was simply to close the eyes and fall. So easy, really. Go limp and tumble to the ground and let the muscles unwind and not speak and not budge until your buddies picked you up and lifted you into the chopper that would roar and dip its nose and carry you off to the world. A mere matter of falling, yet no one ever fell. It was not courage, exactly; the object was not valor. Rather, they were too frightened to be cowards.

I want you to feel what I felt. I want you to know why story-truth is truer sometimes than happening-truth.

Imagination is a killer.

I guess we're really brothers, aren't we? Don't know what that means, except it means that some of the same things we remember.

...precisely where the land touched water at high tide, where things came together but also separated.

I survived, but it's not a happy ending.

But in a story I can steal her soul.