“And then I hear the terrible, terrible scream that of course is the girl getting caught and that’s the choice made, ain’t it?”

“I can still hear the screams. They wake me in the night. Terrible, gut wrenching, painful screams; screams that can only come from the deepest and darkest recesses of the mind. These were not screams of pain. These were screams of years of sorrow and despair. These were screams that made your skin crawl. These were the worst screams I have ever heard. I cannot get them out of my head. Perhaps, they will be with me forever. I shouldn't be so lucky.”

“How do you feel?” she asked, trying to fluff his pillow. “Other than terrible, I mean.”He moved his head slightly to the side. It seemed to be a sickly interpretation of a shrug.“Of course you’re feeling terrible,” she clarified, “but is there any change? More terrible? Less terrible?”He made no response.“The same amount of terrible?”

“And I was struck all at once how life was out there going through its regular courses, and I was suspended, waiting, caught in a terrible crevice between living my life and not living it.”

“She screamed, the high scream that was neither human nor animal but something terrible in between, the sort of sound that you never forget no matter how many beautiful things you hear afterward.”

“Life is, of course, terrible.”