When Faiz took Talia in his arms, Phillip’s heart gave out, one last exhausted pump. He died alone while our backs were turned. Twenty-four years of being the center of everyone’s attention and that’s how he went out, not with a bang or a whimper, just a sigh and the world going colder and the last light from the lanterns dimming to nothing, fireflies in blind eyes.
We went home after that.

He loved how the ends of her cigarettes had red lipstick.

“There is no such thing as a crazy person, little boy. It’s just a person who is watching you.”

And then, he had the strangest thought.
God is a murderer.

The sheriff approached the tree. He looked up. The sunlight poured through the clouds above, making the frost on the branches glow with golden light. Instantly the thought came to him. As clear as the sun.
If God were arrested for murder, the people would ask for the death penalty.
The sheriff stared up at the tree house. The wind returned, moving through his hair like a whisper.
But the people could never kill God, so they killed His Son Jesus instead.
Some deer started to walk toward the sheriff.
Did Jesus die for our sins?
Or did He die for His Father’s?
He held this thought like a smoker cradling his last match.
The people didn’t put Jesus to death as a martyr.
They put Him to death as an accomplice.
He could feel the answer on the tip of his tongue.
Jesus forgave us for killing Him.
His Father never did

Leave her a dolly that laughs and cries,
One that can open and shut its eyes.

He whispered in her ear. She felt the world’s madness. The evil that made God cry at night. With every word, she grew weaker and weaker.

Easy, shallow men. Yet the thought of anyone more substantial made her nervous, for she was trapped between competing desires, a desire for a more meaningful connection and the desire to never change. She wished for eternal youth and endless merriment.

And what almost became a moment he’d probably end up regretting turns into a moment full of relief.

A heart, raw and bleeding, she thought, and the image lingered in her mind. The anatomical heart, like in the Lotería cards, red, with all veins and arteries, rendered bright crimson. What was the saying? Do not miss me, sweetheart, I’ll be back by bus.

Once upon a time there was a princess in a tower, once upon a time a prince saved the girl from the tower. Noemí sat on the bed and contemplated the notion of enchantments that are never broken.

There was something lovely and intimate when he looked like this.
Noemí was struck with the desire to lean forward and kiss him, a feeling like wishing to light a match, a burning, bright, and eager feeling. Yet she hesitated. It was easy to kiss someone when it didn’t matter; it was more difficult when it might be meaningful

There were no clouds or gray skies to match the mood of the moment. No rain or thunder to match the hammering of our broken hearts. It was beautiful. Peaceful. Birds were quiet, the breeze was light, and the sun kissed our skin in comforting caresses.

-always keeping a close eye on things she blamed herself for missing in the past

I can’t wait, until I see your face and my brain thinks that it’s looking at a stranger

For the world’s more full of weeping than
You can understand

A beam of the slant west sunshine
Made the wan face almost fair
Lit the blue eyes’ patient wonder
And the rings of pale gold hair
She kissed it on lip and forehead
She kissed it on cheek and chink
And she bared her snow-white bosom
To the lips so pale and thin

The very idea something so inviting could herald the entrance of this pit of hell made my skin crawl.

I am the man, I suffered, I was there.

told her that I had loved her once and I made myself believe it

I was thinking, when I told Hella that I had loved her, of those days before anything awful, irrevocable, had happened to me, when an affair was nothing more than an affair. Now, from this night, this coming morning, no matter how many beds I find myself in between now and my final bed, I shall never be able to have any more of those boyish, zestful affairs—which are, really, when one thinks of it, a kind of higher, or, anyway, more pretentious masturbation. People are too various to be treated so lightly. I am too various to be trusted. If this were not so I would not be alone in this house tonight.