“Do you realize, Tyler,' says Anna-Louise, 'the entire time we were in the forest it rained steadily and not once did we approach a state of moistness? There was a storm and we didn't even know.”

“Mphhh... What did you say Tyler?' Anna-Louise mumbles on the bed above me.I stand up, and a tame blue bird lands on my shoulder and tries to nibble my earlobe. I gently shake Anna-Louise fully awake. 'Anna-Louise, wake-up,' I say. 'Wake up--the world is alive.”

“I imagine I sow cuttings of Anna-Louise's hair, like the fine stems of dried flowers, and watch sunflowers grow from the cuttings. I imagine I bury a pocket calculator with liquid crystals spelling her name, then watch the earth shoot forth lightning bolts. 'We should open up a seafood house together,' Anna-Louise says when she wants to torture me. Now that's love. ”

“Anna-Louise leans over and whispers in my ear. "This is so surreal," she says, "I think I'm turning into a melting clock.”

“For there was once a time when we expected the worst. But then the worst happened, did it not? And so we will never be surprised ever again.”

“She says to me, but were we ever intimate? How intimate were we really? Sure, there were the ordinary familiarity-type things - our bodies, our bodily discharges and stains and seepages, an encyclopedic knowledge of each other's family grudges, knowledge of each other's early school yard slights, our dietary peccadilloes, our tv remote control channel-changing styles. And yet...And yet?And yet in the end did we ever really give each other completely to the other? Do either of us even know how to really share ourselves? Imagine the house is on fire and I reach to save one thing - what is it? Do you know? Imagine that I am drowning and I reach within myself to save that one memory which is me - what is it? Do you know? What things would either of us reach for? Neither of us know. After all these years we just wouldn't know. ”

“And yet in the end did we ever really give each other completely to the other? Do either of us even know how to really share ourselves? Imagine the house is on fire and I reach to save one thing - what is it? Do you know? Imagine that I am drowning and I reach within myself to save that one memory which is me - what is it? Do you know? What things would either of us reach for? Neither of us know. After all these years we just wouldn't know.”