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He could feel his infancy disintegrating, and among the bellows of congratulation that accompanied each little step towards full citizenship he heard the whisper of loss.
Growing up.as loss
Words drained out of her like an unplugged bath.
That was the trouble with grown-ups: they always wanted to be the centre of attention, with their battering rams of food, and their sleep routines and their obsession with making you learn what they knew and forget what they had forgotten.
the softness of the fontanelle, only a thumb’s thrust away from his growing brain. He
Couldn’t his parents remember what it was like when it was just the three of them? They loved each other so much that it hurt when one of them left the room.
Once you got words you thought the world was everything that could be described, but it was also what couldn’t be described.
think I look as if I haven’t forgotten yet. But in a way you’re right, I don’t think I’ve ever really got used to being on the material plane.’
in general babies live in a democracy of strangeness. Things happen for the first time all the time – what’s surprising is things happening again.’
When you’re a child nobody leaves you alone. If he ran away now, they would send out a search party, round him up and entertain him to death.
speaking not so much to tell a story as to see what it was like to come out of silence into words.
