"i dreamed i saw you dead in a place by the water. a ravaged place. all flat and empty and wide open. and you were covered in some kind of binding. like a mummy. something white and reflective, from head to toe. and the light shone on you. oh, how it shone on you! it glanced off you, and it was like a pure, bright silver. the wind was singing. it sang: you have suffered enough. you have suffered enough. then death came and he kissed you. lightly. gently. upon the lips. there is nothing beyond, he whispered, only me, only me. there is nothing beyond. only me."
— Nicola Barker (Wide Open)

"And it was that self-same summer—June 5th, if precision is your watchword—that I first set eyes on a stringy southern hemisphere home-boy, a man-boy, a prankish puck by the name of La Roux (with very bad skin and even worse instincts), who sailed into the slow-beating heart of our half-arsed, high-strung, low-bred family, then casually capsized himself, but left us all drowning (now they don’t teach you that at the Sea Scouts, do they?)."
— Nicola Barker (Five Miles from Outer Hope)