Nick Fowler

“What could be more intimate, more placental? This steamy, candlelit cradle she'd made use, twins tied in the womb. Grooming each other, letting the soil and torment that is the world's indifference disappear down the drain. Here, at last, was my partner. Tucked behind the wet walls of our sanctum. Here we could gleam anew with infant vigor, could refuel each other...with the will to believe again.”

“Having you in my life is so comforting, because it's like you feel and say all the same things I always did, but hearing you say them somehow confirms them for me, the way it's impossible to feel the same pleasure from running your own fingers through your own hair. What I'm trying to say is, you just can't tickle yourself.”

“I wondered just how much of her I'd invented. Had I only mastered some skill for awing myself? Or would this creature, Camilla, like a settler's incessant New World, keep increasing my capacity not only to marvel but to marvel at myself in the face of her?”