Innocently, as they moved past her, she added, “Oh, and don’t trip over the body on the floor.
So they layered cynicism atop their longing, and it was something like laying laughter over the darkness – self-preservation of an uglier stripe.
Papilio stomachus: fragile creatures, vulnerable to frost and betrayal.
It is life that expands to fill worlds. Life is your master or death is.
Zuzana wondered if she could have been wrong about him, but dismissed the thought. Anyone who would wear all white like that clearly had issues. Just looking at him made her wish she had a paintball gun, but hell, you couldn’t pack for every eventuality.
The mind is good at hiding things, but it can’t erase. It can only conceal, and concealed things are not gone.
For what is living but a chain of impossible choices? Every choice casts a shadow, and sometimes those shadows stalk your dreams.
You’re young. Your spirit shouldn’t be ‘fine.’ It should be effervescent.
The hope at odds with the fear of hoping.
But the truth has a way of seeping out. The mind can’t erase. It can only conceal, and concealed things are not gone.
Fertility, sexuality, strength, and the ability to create and nurture life: These were the powers of women... It was a ripening, yes, but not just for the purpose of bearing children, or being a wife. It represented a claiming of one’s self...
Such were the humble beginnings of the end of the world: the absence of dreams.
The future was blind, but she couldn’t feel, truly, that it would be better without her in it.
Aah! Eye contact. Look away!
The soul effused from the vessel, overwhelming her with its presence. It was fireflies in a garden. It was eyes shining from shadows. It was flicker and fork, honey and venom, slit pupils and smooth, sun-warmed enamel.
I’m going to be the scariest grandma in the world,” she muttered, grouchy and kind of looking forward to it.
He listened the way a cactus drinks rain – every word a precious drop in a world frugal with wonder.
Can we leave the past behind us?” she asked. Could they? The question was everything. “That’s an excellent place for the past,” said Suheyla. “If you don’t leave it there, it clutters everything up and you just keep tripping over it.
Liraz’s smile was like the love child of a shark and a scimitar.
Hope was mirage, and none trusted easily to it.