The Apex Book of World SF

In a different time she might have mistaken his generosity for loneliness, but now she understood it for what it was. Such was the way of age: it melted prejudice or hardened it.

“The world will change,” she said. “It always does. We are all empty, but this changing is what saves us.

To paraphrase the Urdu poet Allama Iqbal: don’t be frightened of these furious violent winds—they blow only to make you fly higher.

And Ma and I—what if months later we sit here and watch a dusty vehicle climb the hill, bouncing a sack of meat in the back seat that was once you? What if…” But she couldn’t go on giving name to her terrors. Instead, she said, “If you go, know that we as we are now will be gone forever.” He shuddered. “We were gone when she was gone. We were shatt