“A cat is a responsibility after all. And feeding and keeping and caring about a stupid fat cat isn't much, isn't much in the entirety of what counts for being a person and the huge range of what people do,but it is something. It is something and it's something that's warm and that I still have.”

“It's tiring not knowing people isn't it?" Clio said later.It isn't word efficient," I agreed.”

“There's nothing about the times when she wasn't funny or sexy, or when she talked too much or about her pissing or shitting. There's no way to really preserve a person when they're gone and that's because whatever you write down it's not the truth, it's just a story.”

“Everything that had happened was all part of the same great big something, it had to happen, I just knew”

“A movement unlocked my attention. I re-focused my eyes, looking past the vodka glass and into the static buzz of the TV. I stayed very still for a few seconds before lowering the glass to the floor, careful not to take my eyes off the screen. There was something distant and alive in the depths of the white noise - a living glide of thoughts swimming forward, a moving body of concepts and half felt images.”

“Just tell me i'm not dreaming?"maybe you are," she said. "Probably you are."I don't want to be. Clio, i can't do this on my own."There was a bang.We both jumped, turned towards the Roman bath. A clump of leaves swirled on the surface of the water in a slow spiral.Is there something down there?"Clio nodded. "Yes."What is it?"I don't k now," she said, watching the waters. "Something from down where it gets black."There was another bang.Little waves raced across the littery surface, lapping the bath's mouldy tiled sides.Are you ready? This is it." Clio held me by the tops of my arms and gave me a smile which was meant to be strong and almost was.What? Clee, what's going on?"Bang.”

“It's like they say about soldiers coming back from war. People all around you are dying. Really dying, Eric. You go in for a week's chemotherapy and you're in a ward with people who are really, actually dying, there and then and doing their best to come to terms with it. When the week's up, you go home and you see your family and your friends and everything's normal and familiar. It's too much. You think - one world can't possibly hold both these lives and you feel like you're going to go crazy when you realise the world is that big and it can fill with the most terrible things whenever it wants to.”