The Book of Flora (The Road to Nowhere, #3)

by Meg Elison

Now I see that if I do not carry my past with me, it will wrap itself around my ankles and drag me down. There is no living without it. There is no pretending I am not the sum of all these things.

In my experience, a crop that is grown for anything but food or clothing is a luxury, and luxury does not exist without slavery.

Do we decide what we like? Is it born in us, or is it different if you have seen different things? Do we like what we saw growing up? What our mothers liked? Is there a day that comes and goes when we decide what we like, now and forever?

Alice took her time now. She held Ina’s hand, sobbing and sniffling. That was the moment when I realized that every new death in my life was like a new link in an old chain. They connect, and you run your hands over all the ones that come before it. It is never new. It is never just one death.

Hortensia thinks that Bambritch should outlaw everything: old-world drugs, pipeweed, drinking, everything. We’ve talked about it, and drunkenness certainly contributes to a little bit of chaos around here. But time and again we come back to the question of whether we can attempt to control anything people do with their own bodies that doesn’t hurt anyone else. So we do not, and Zill drinks on.