“That me is far from what you know. That me is dead. There’s no comfort in this. And there’s the fear that this me you see, raging and electric, will be dead someday, too.”

“In my mind I played the image of him and the visual artist, their long limbs entangled, his hand on her throat, his eyes on her contorted face, his other hand kneading her heavy breasts.”

“Even as she thought it, she knew it was impossible to make everything overlap in a way that satisfied her.”

“To some of us who sat with Mike at lunch every day, Shit Plate felt like a good thing that we were doing, like charity work.”

“This was true, but the dogs whose bowls I filled only just outnumbered those I injected with pentobarbital, running my hands along their backs as their eyes filmed over, just the way a skin of ice settles still and foggy overtop the glossy water of the creek.”