Yeah, they kinda swim around all pointlessly, doncha think?” Edna winced, squinting. Over and over again, in the same li’l old place. It’s madness. Glad I’m not a fish.

Life has meaning because death exists. We love the good times in life because they're fleeting, because we know they will soon be replaced by something else. But death itself is nothing to be afraid of. It's a natural part of life, the natural closure that everything builds to. Working in a nursing home has taught me that: We're all lunatics on a big space rock, pretending to be sane, pretending we can fix everything, pretending we won't die.

That night, the sky emptied itself. The crater of Heaven's Hole was baptized in white. Snow blanketed the town's sins, and its immorality flowed like sewage into one small drain — a tiny, thin-skinned Atlas named Billy Jakobek, who raced through the night, carrying the weight of every person on his aching back.

Every conscious being in the universe is a mess. That’s what’s so beautiful about life. Clean things are boring things.

He stared into Bubbe's kind dark eyes. "They say you can't go home again." "You can't, no, never." She hugged him. "But if you keep your mind open, you can always find a new home inside the old one.