“I decided to dub the room with the good chairs my lutery. Or perhaps my performatory. I would need a while to come up with something suitably pretentious.”

“How's your scratch, Henri?" I asked.He snorted and leaned against the dresser. "You mean the shotgun blast in my side? It's wonderful. I have about eighty pellet-size scars to show for it.""Dude," Dub said, plopping down in one of the chairs, "Who gets shot with their own gun? Embarrassing, if you ask me."Henri gave Dub's chair a hard shove with his foot. Dub laughed, and Henri rolled his eyes.”

“The phone rang. I picked it up. “Are you sitting down?” Curran's voice asked. “Yes.” “Good.” Click.I listened to the disconnect signal. If he wanted me to sit, then I'd stand. I got up. The chair got up with me and I ended up bent over my desk, with the chair stuck to my butt. I grabbed the edge of the chair and tried to pull it off. It remained stuck. I would murder him. Slowly. And I'd enjoy every second of it.”

“While my scarcely controlled rage flew from my mouth in sentences I hoped would be, perhaps not then but perhaps later, like knives to her brain.”

“I shook my head and settled myself in the bumpy wicker chair. Now, what would be a good segue? So, I hear Jih isn’t the only one who’s been knocked up….”

“I was in my house, alone in the living room, anxious about you, watching the flashes of lightning. And a flash of lightning lit up this truth for me, right in front of my eye. That night i lost you, I lost something inside me. Or perhaps several things. Something central to my existence, the very support for who I am as a person”