“If another body pulled that shit, I would've screamed blue murder. I would have gone at them with my nails and not stopped until they were a bloody mess at my feet. Then I would have gotten the cricket bat hidden under my bed and spent a few minutes feeling guilty about not feeling guilt as i beat the crap out of the intruder waiting for the police to arrive.”

“I waited for my body to respond to her nearness. Hoping that my heart would beat wildly or that wonderful tingling feeling would begin to surge from my groin. But my insides were quiet, almost…bored.”

“If I knew how a lot of my relationships would have turned out, I never would have gotten involved in them... And I would have missed out on some of the best times in my life.”

“I prayed. I flattened myself under her bed and prayed. My mother sat up, rigid, trembling. The machines flew overhead then away and back again, the sound retreating and filling my head once more.I lay next to my mother, wondering about the fate of my brothers, my sisters ans stepsisters, my father and friends. I knew that when the helicopters were gone, life would have changed irreversibly in our village. But would it be over? Would the crickets leave? I did not know. My mother did not know. It was the beginning of the end if knowing that life would continue. Do you have a feeling, Michael, that you will wake up tomorrow? That you will eat tomorrow? That the world will not end tomorrow?”

“Only afterward did the guilt set in--the guilt that for a few minutes he let himself stop feeling guilty.”

“I told them I did not intend to try to prove my innocence, but would help him prove my guilt if possible, for if guilty I wanted to ind it out and quit it.”