Sublime

Maybe if we had admitted to the precarious balance of his mental and physical state, I would’ve told him to crawl onto my bed. We could’ve lain head to toe, under my sheets, like kids at a sleepover. But he never wanted to burden anyone with the slightest of inconveniences, so we pretended that his racing thoughts were all right, however false that

The smoke began to fill the large hollow; each clump bore the face it had worn in life. I saw the woman and two children I’d met in the village near Gomusan, as well as the old woman I’d come across at the train station. Countless other faces I’d never seen, and did not know crowded around me. There were three or four little urchins who’d slept und

mien.

Like a merciful cloak, paralysis enveloped his body.

incandescent

We rarely witnessed or experienced any real humanity or warmth in our daily life. Everyone was always thinking of themselves—how to get ahead, pretending to care about the party, watching their own backs, scrambling for food, and using cigarettes and alcohol as bribes to get in with people who had power. To be fair, it was the only way to survive.

lackadaisical

Saltatory