“He talks softly, patiently, as I sit on the window ledge and watch boats with colorful triangles for sails scratch the ocean.”

“I feel unburdened, and after a while I start to imagine that the divan is a boat moving over the ocean. Sunken cities play music beneath the waves. The ghosts are stirring.”

“This time as we ascend, I watch the world sinking below us. I watch the way the city fades into sand that gets washed by the ocean.”

“Suddenly the clouds seem high above us. They’re moving over us in an arch, circling the planet. They have seen abysmal oceans and charred, scorched islands. They have seen how we destroyed the world. If I could see everything, as the clouds do, would I swirl around this remaining continent, still so full of color and life and seasons, wanting to protect it? Or would I just laugh at the futility of it all, and meander onward, down the earth’s sloping atmosphere?”

“Every word out of your mouth," he pants, "has been a lie, hasn't it?""No," I say softly. "Not everything.""What about your name?" he says. "Is your name even Rhine?”

“He rubbed my arm, whispering words that sounded like moth bodies flying into glass windows.”

“I see an ocean that’s spilled out of a wineglass, its body clear and sparkling and folding over itself. I see a ribbon of sand.”