She put on some music. Drum and flute, I think. She played it soft, because it was dreadfully late, a time when all good men and women, or at least the practical ones, had gone to bed. Then she danced for me.

I don't put much stock in remembering things. Being able to forget is a superior skill.

Push away the past, that vessel in which all emotions curdle to regret.

Ebb and flow, ebb and flow, our lives. Is that why we're fascinated by the steadfastness of stars? The water reaches my calves. I begin the story of the Pleiades, women transformed into birds so Swift and bright that no man could snare them.

What is the nature of life?Life is lines of dominoes falling.One thing leads to another, and then another, just like you'd planned. But suddenly a Domino gets skewed, events change direction, people dig in their heels, and you're faced with a situation that you didn't see coming, you who thought you were so clever.

She lifts her eyes, and there is Death in the corner, but not like a king with his iron crown, as the epics claimed. Why, it is a giant brush loaded with white paint. It descends upon her with gentle suddenness, obliterating the shape of the world.

But inside loss there can be gain, too,like the small silver spider Bela had discovered one dewy morning, curled asleep at the center of a rose.

Would you like to come in?" I said. My hands were sweaty. Inside my chest an ocean heaved and crashed and heaved again."I would," he said. I saw his Adam's apple jerk as he swallowed. "Thank you."I was distracted by that thank you. We had moved past the language of formality long ago. It was strange to relearn it with each other.

Bela had thought she knew what love felt like, but when she saw Sanjay at the airport after six long months, her heart gave a great, hurtful lurch, as though it were trying to leap out of her body to meet him. This, she thought. This is it. But it was only part of the truth. She would learn over the next years that love can feel a lot of different ways, and sometimes it can hurt a lot more.