Metaphors failed him, then. He had gone beyond the world of metaphor and simile into the place of things that are, and it was changing him.

“It sounded like a piece of blackboard being dragged over the nails of a wall of…”

“It's not sipping wine. It's a mourning wine. You drain it. Like this.”

“It’s easier to kill people, when you’re dead yourself,” she told him. “I mean, …”

“Even in dreams and in death, a monk and a fox are from different worlds, as the…”