For Real (Spires, #3)

by Alexis Hall

After a silence that contained the rise and fall of at least six or seven civilisations, he nodded.

He lifts his head before I die. And I just lie there, incandescent, taut, and panting.

Then I disembark the good ship HMS Inebriated Wanker,

I thought grief would be kind of cool and lofty: this rarefied sadness. But it’s the most ignoble thing I’ve ever known. I feel like a wild animal, lost and scratching.