“The only sound I'll hear after that will be my own breathing, and the sound of the smell, of my footsteps”

“It's the sound of my breathing that gets me, pouring down into my lungs and then tripping back up my throat.”

“Could she smell my breath? Could she hear my cursed circular heart beat revolving like the crime it is in my deathly chest?”

“I suppose he'll die soon. I'm expecting it, like you do for a dog that's seventeen. There's no way to know how I'll react. He'll have faced his own placid death and slipped without a sound inside himself. Mostly, I imagine I'll crouch there at the door, fall onto him, and cry hard into the stench of his fur. I'll wait for him to wake up, but he won't. I'll bury him. I'll carry him outside, feeling his warmth turn to cold as the horizon frays and falls down in my backyard. For now, though, he's okay. I can see him breathing. He just smells like he's dead.”

“Disbelief held me down inside my footsteps, making my body heavy but my heart wild.”

“The flyscreen door is torn at the edges. Fraying. I open it and knock on the wood. The sound rhymes with my heartbeat.”

“Sometimes I think my papa is an accordion. When he looks at me and smiles and breathes, I hear the notes.”