During the interviews she’d asked a lot of questions about height and eye colour and other things that were none of her business. “That’s the concern of the First Mothers,” Sharmayne had finally told her. “We do the genetic planning around here. He’s a good clean boy, that’s all you need to know. Maybe a little temperamental, but just go easy with

Satire in extreme times is risky. Choose any excess, think you’re wildly exaggerating, and it’s most likely to have been true. (Sympathetic murmur) I know.

“‘Sleeping with the enemy’? Remember that?” says Myrna. “Yeah, it was fun,” says Leonie. “I slept with a lot of enemies. I told myself I was a spy.” “Hypocrite,” says Myrna. They laugh. “Promise me something,” says Leonie. “Closed coffin, jokes at my funeral, and lots of gin at the wake.”

“I want to still be me,” says Tig. “You still are you,” Nell says. “So far,” says Tig. Another pause. “We’ll get through it,” says Nell. “Yes, we will,” says Tig. They squeeze hands.

What you mean is how am I managing to cope, now that Tig has died. Am I lonely? Am I suffering? Is the house too empty? Am I checking all the boxes of the prescribed grieving process? Have I gone into the dark tunnel, dressed in mourning black with gloves and a veil, and come out the other end, all cheery and wearing bright colours and loaded for

Perhaps I was a woman to begin with—maybe even this particular woman, Amber, with her wardrobe of jokey T-shirts—and I was sent into a snail in order to learn something of deep importance to my soul. But what could that be? To pay homage to the immediate, such as the rich veins and cells of edible greens and the heady, intoxicating scent of

They’ve had a sauna in the little shack Tig designed and built for the purpose, back when he was first feeling arthritic, back when he thought such a thing as a sauna might reverse time. No such luck, but anyway here they are. They’re holding hands. They’re wearing white terry-cloth bathrobes like those in spas, bought by Nell when white

And if you did guess, if you could foresee, would that be better? No: you’d live in grief all the time, you’d be mourning things that hadn’t happened yet. Better to preserve the illusion of safety. Better to improvise. Better to march along through the golden autumn woods, not very well prepared, poking icy ponds with your hiking pole, snacking on

paragraph a battle is a jig saw puzzle of fighting men bewildered terrified civilians noise smells jokes pain fear unfinished conversations and high explosives stop