Shutter Island

by Dennis Lehane

Charm was the luxury of those who still believed in the essential rightness of things. In purity and picket fences.

Teddy was reminded of that day on his father’s boat, of his first realization that nature was indifferent to him and far more powerful,

How much violence, Marshal, do you think a man can carry before it breaks him?” Teddy said, “Don’t know, Doc. Kind of wondering, myself.”

Teddy sat down on a boulder and felt the sweat saturating his body, soaking his white shirt and pants, and he felt exhilarated. His heart still thumped, and his eyes itched, and the back of his shoulders and neck tingled, and he knew this was, outside of love, the greatest feeling in the world. To have escaped.

but even so, if he could manage it, he would never, ever, get in the ocean again. He could feel it watching him and touching him. He could feel the age of it, more ancient than gods and prouder of its body count.