“Hope was a sunrise, a friend in the alley, a whisper in an empty corridor.”

“The melody rolled over her, as cool and sweet as water, as hopeful and lovely as sunrise.”

“If the dawn should breakand take away this sunrise,I hope I break, too.”

“Dear friend now in the dusty clockless hours of the town when the streets lie black and steaming in the wake of the watertrucks and now when the drunk and the homeless have washed up in the lee of walls in alleys or abandoned lots and cats go forth highshouldered and lean in the grim perimeters about, now in these sootblacked brick or cobbled corridors where lightwire shadows make a gothic harp of cellar doors no soul shall walk save you.”

“Death isn't peaceful; it is just nothing. Everything is gone. No more sunrises, no more hopes, no more fears. Nothing.”

“Standing in the corridor was a large plastic bin on wheels. He looked inside. Empty tins of dog food. That explained the spaghetti with meat sauce. Oh well, he'd eaten worse.”