Milena found Cilia outside, holding her bamboo box. Milena hugged her. ‘I’m sorry about your shins,’ she said. Milena lifted the lid of the box, and saw it, the precious paper, ruled in staves. People were generous. Milena had never believed that.

“Once there was a dictator. He drove millions to various kinds of deaths, by war…”

“Everything goes, everything is lost, eventually. But if something is good, it d…”

“God, the woman must have been a pain. When she was alive.”

“Sex complicates, but it is the power of love to simplify.”