The Handmaid's Tale

by Margaret Atwood

I’ll take care of it, Luke said. And because he said it instead of her, I knew he meant kill. That is what you have to do before you kill, I thought. You have to create an it, where none was before. You do that first, in your head, and then you make it real. So that’s how they do it, I thought. I seemed never to have known that before.

Though maybe it’s not Your doing; I don’t believe for an instant that what’s going on out there is what You meant.

Better never means better for everyone, he says. It always means worse, for some.