“I once watched him remove a living man’s face. He took one tiny patch of flesh at a time until the faceless, blubbering man was staring through lidless eyes at a bloody mosaic of his own skin pasted on a mirror that had been set so he could watch every cut of the operation.”

“He waited for her to say something. Anything. But she only watched him watching her, their equally ragged breathing fighting for dominance. With a flick of his fingers, he slipped beneath the cotton and absorbed the feel of her delicate skin, now way past warm. Past even hot. She burned for him. Skating lower, he brushed her thatch of damp curls. His heartbeat kicked up and that lightheaded sensation overtook him again, stealing his attention from her face for as long as it took him to get control. Then he met her eyes once more before he slid into the steam.”

“Not watching the path where his legs took him, he walked on because he knew he had to walk ahead, leaving his past behind.”

“And then he only had eyes for the pie. Watch any man, he could be ninety years old and drooling spit, but at the sight of homemade pie every last one of his wits will spring to attention.”

“Me and Nkiruka, we watched through the window until the moon grew an extraordinary size, so big that it filled the window frame. We could see the face of the man in the moon, so close that we could see the madness in his eyes.”

“He rarely smoked, but once in a while, like now, when his world had been shaken, his woman nearly killed in front of his eyes, and he’d watched a house consume a man and spit him out, he figured a drag or two were appropriate.”