Our fragments made us.
What will Ofwarren give birth to? A baby, as we all hope? Or something else, an Unbaby, with a pinhead or a snout like a dog’s, or two bodies, or a hole in its heart or no arms, or webbed hands and feet? There’s no telling. They could tell once, with machines, but that is now outlawed. What would be the point of knowing, anyway? You can’t have them taken out; whatever it is must be carried to term.
The doctors, the dentists, the lawyers, the accountants: in the new world of Gilead, as in the old, their sins are frequently forgiven them.
Buttered, I lie on my single bed, flat, like a piece of toast. I.
I don’t sing like this often. It makes my throat hurt.
Where there are wars, there will be crows, the carrion-fanciers. And ravens too, the warbirds, the eyeball gourmands. And vultures, the holy birds of yore, old connoisseurs of rot.
What he couldn’t have in life he might still catch sight of through his art: just a glimpse, from the corner of his eye.
Was she in any way like us? thinks Tony. Or, to put it the other way around: Are we in any way like her?
They put the picture in the window when they have something, take it away when they don’t. Sign language.
Well of course people cross genres all the time. You could have something called science-fiction-fantasy. Some galaxy far, far away and in another time with spaceships, but also dragons. And there’s no rule that says you can’t do that.
It would make me feel that I have power. But such a feeling would be an illusion, and too risky.
Actually, they took turns trying to avoid being the victims. That’s the whole point about war!
They are entering the forest of amnesia, where things have lost their names.
Five members of the heretical sect of Quakers have been arrested,” he says, smiling blandly, “and more arrests are anticipated.” Two of the Quakers appear onscreen, a man and a woman. They look terrified, but they’re trying to preserve some dignity in front of the camera. The man has a large dark mark on his forehead; the woman’s veil has been torn off, and her hair falls in strands over her face. Both of them are about fifty.
The months passed; my life of tiptoeing and eavesdropping continued. I worked hard at seeing without being seen and hearing without being heard. I discovered the cracks between door frames and nearly closed doors, the listening posts in hallways and on stairs, the thin places in walls. Most of what I heard came in fragments and even silences, but I was becoming good at fitting these fragments together and filling in the unsaid parts of sentences.
While I read, the Commander sits and watches me doing it, without speaking but also without taking his eyes off me. This watching is a curiously sexual act, and I feel undressed while he does it.
She can outstare anyone, and I am almost as good. We’re impervious, we scintillate, we are thirteen. We wear long wool coats with tie belts, the collars turned up to look like those of movie stars, and rubber boots with the tops folded down and men’s work socks inside. In our pockets are stuffed the kerchiefs our mothers make us wear but that we take off as soon as we’re out of their sight. We scorn head coverings. Our mouths are tough, crayon-red, shiny as nails. We think we are friends.
You create your own world by your inner attitude, the Gardeners used to say.
Caught in the act, sinfully Scrabbling. Quick, eat those words.
She wants to jig and amble, she wants to lisp, she wants to suck the last slurp of essence out of his almost-voided cranium. Avaunt, wanton!