“I imagine that's what being full-dead is like. And emptiness vast and absolute.”

“Just... ate," M says, frowning at me a little. "Two days...ago."I grab my stomach again. "Feel empty. Feel... dead."He nods. "Marr...iage.”

“One mistake, one brief lapse of my new found judgement-that's all it took to unravel everything. What a massive responsibility, being a moral creature.”

“Last winter, when so many Living joined the Dead and our prey became scarce, I watched some of my friends become full-dead. The transition was undramatic. They just slowed down, then stopped, and after a while I realised they were corpses. It disquieted me at first, but it’s against etiquette to notice when one of us dies. I distracted myself with some groaning.”

“Now I’m just standing here on the conveyor. Along for the ride. I reach the end, turn around, and go back the other way. The world has been distilled. Being dead is easy. After a few hours of this, I notice a female on the opposite conveyor. She doesn’t lurch or groan like most of us. Her head just lolls from side to side. I like that about her. That she doesn’t lurch or groan. I catch her eye and stare at her.”

“Is this muteness a real physical handicap? One of the many symptoms of being Dead?Or do we just have nothing left to say?”

“Even as I think them, the words lose their context, dissolve into grains of absurdity in the vast ocean of day-to-day hunger.”