“They haven't spoken about it, they haven't said what will we do when we leave here, do you want to come with me, let's work something out, and she knows that this means they will quickly and easily drift apart, into other people's lives, into other people's arms in rooms like this. She is surprised that this doesn't make her feel sad. She listens to the music, she looks around at the things people dropped when they fell asleep or went out of the room, she kisses the boy's arm again and she feels only a kind of sweet nostalgia. She wonders if you can feel nostalgic for something before it's in the past, she wonders if perhaps her vocabulary is too small or if her chemical intake has corroded it and the music goes doowah doowah doowah.”

“She wonders if you can feel nostalgic for something before it's in the past, she wonders if perhaps her vocabulary is too small or if her chemical intake has corroded it and the music goes doowoah doowoah.”

“He thinks about her, at this moment, in her house, a few thin walls away, packing her life into boxes and bags and he wonders what memories she is rediscovering, what thoughts are catching in her mouth like the dust blown from unused textbooks. He wonders if she has buried any traces of herself under her floorboards. He wonders what those traces would be if she had. And he wonders again why he thinks about her so much when he knows so little to think about.”

“Her skin is slowly peeled from her body. She knows something low and guttural must be coming out of her mouth, She can feel it ripping its way out of her lungs and past her throat. But she can't hear it because there is a roar in her veins like a hurricane. A bright, pure light pierces her, fixes her on a single point of space and time, and she is screaming still, though not from pain, but from fear and wonder. Like she's just been born.”

“He wonders what memories she is rediscovering, what thoughts are catching in her mouth like the dust blown from unused textbooks.”

“He says when your grandmother died your mother cried solidly for a week, solidly.She was crying with relief he says, it was like as if a door had been unlocked and she'd been let outside, she said to me I'm safe now.He waits, and he says this kid, when it's born, you mustn't ever let it think it's anything other than a gift and a blessing, do you hear me?”

“Whenever she steps out into the world, that woman often becomes an invisible being she gets shoved around and stepped on… and when she gets mixed amongst the crowd… I don’t thin she is visible to other people that’s why that woman hides in her room, her small room feels cozy to her like a cage feels cozy to a bird with a broken wing. And in that room … she can breathe freely. She’s never dreamed of the world outside, or missed the world out there. at least until now… at least until now…”