“Sometimes I dream about all the old countries sleeping down under the sea,” Red confided to me. “England and France and Portugal and Poland. All their kings and queens weighed down by emeralds and saltwater in the dark with the squid. All those bones. All those fathers, mothers, sons, and daughters. And in my dream, if the fathers and mothers loved their sons and daughters and sang to them in their cradles, they made a good country, and if they didn’t, they made a tyranny, so whether existence is a bloodbath or a bubble bath could hinge on whether a little child got kissed good night with a
...more
