“What’s up?” I said.“Nothing.”“I mean what’s wrong?”“My leg is broken.”“Yeah, I noticed.”

“The problem is, I can’t tell what’s real anymore, and what’s made up.”

“I don’t know what’s ahead,” I say. “I don’t know nothing about nothing but whatever it is, it’s gotta be better than what’s behind. It’s gotta be.”

“What’s outside my head and what’s inside my head aren’t worth mentioning. What’s worth mentioning is what’s on my head – my hair. Whatever happens, I’ll still be as fashionably coiffed as I was before the war broke out and I got dementia.”

“What’s wrong with you?”“I don’t know. I probably got alien cooties.”

“He was breathing heavily. “I honestly don’t understand what’s wrong with you,” he said. “You’re telling me to pack my bags, to leave our house, knowing you’re going to have a baby?”“And this surprises you why? Have you seen what’s been happening in our house?”“Stop talking to me like this in our bed, Tatiana. My white flag is up,” said Alexander. “I have no more.”“My white flag is up, too, Shura,” she said. “You know when mine went up? June 22, 1941.”