“Today, however, she didn't go looking for urchins or broken shells. She simply walked to the end of the earth and stood a while.”
“She didn't say goodbye. She set off up the street, dodging the pedestrians, walking fast. He watched her, waiting to see if she might look back. But of course she didn't. He knew she wouldn't. She wasn't the looking-back kind.”
“Wherever she looked, she saw fires. They covered the earth like fallen stars, and like the stars there was no end to them.”
“As a girl, she had come to believe in the ideal man -- the prince or knight of her childhood stories. In the real world, however, men like that simply didn't exist.”
“She walks lightly, old man. She walks lightly upon the earth.”
“She looked up and ran her eyes over me,slowly, while I stood and wondered why. Had she forgotten what I looked like? But she finished with a big smile. She really did like me, the idiot.”