“I suppose the pain of parting will be red and loud.”

“The worst part was the silence. Death was supposed to be loud — gunshots, explosions, screams and thunder. Not this eerie quiet that wrapped around me like a shroud.”

“I stroked a big red A on top of his paper. Looked at it for a moment or two, then added a big red +. Because it was good, and because his pain had evoked an emotional reaction in me, his reader. And isn’t that what A+ writing is supposed to do? Evoke a response?”

“Red my memory, red my despair. Red my nights, red my bloody pain. What would I become without you, colour of my entrails?”

“There are kinds of pain that you can't speak out loud.”

“Family history, of course, has its proper dietary laws. One is supposed to swallow and digest only the permitted parts of it, the halal portions of the past, drained of their redness, their blood. Unfortunately, this makes the stories less juicy...”