“I paused, partly for breath, and partly because I felt I had said enough. I stood there, waiting for her reply, wishing I had a throat lozenge to suck.”

“But even though I felt her presence, I also felt the habitual fruitlessness of thinking about her. Her images, partly memories of her, partly memories of photos I had seen of her, yielded no new answers to old mysteries.”

“But in the same token, I wondered how I was still standing. Why wasn’t I six feet under from the shock of what had happened? How was I living, breathing, and lying like nothing had happened? Part of me might have been living, but the other part of me wished I was dead. I shuddered at the thought. I closed my eyes and pressed myself closer to Will. For the first time all morning, I felt safe.”

“So we waited. I felt useless. I felt like I was in the way. I wished I had some nervous habits so I could indulge in them.”

“That air. The air afterwards. I wanted to breathe it in. It felt right to breathe it in. Because we were breathing them in, weren't we? And the building. We were breathing it all in. And I thought, there's a part of this that's actually a part of me now. I now have that responsibility. I am alive, and I am breathing, and I can do the things this dust can't do.”

“You know what I wish? I wish all the scum of the Earth had one throat and I had my hands about it.”