More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
darkness suits me.
Octopuses are remarkably bright creatures,
Good night, sharks, you poor things. Tova has always felt more than a bit of empathy for the sharks, with their never-ending laps around the tank. She understands what it means to never be able to stop moving, lest you find yourself unable to breathe.
The sea must be a delightful buffet. All of these delicacies, free for the taking.
Herring, herring, so much herring.
How delicate those wounds were back then, how little it took to nudge the scabs out of place and start the bleeding anew.
These women have always worn motherhood big and loud on their chests, but Tova keeps hers inside, sunk deep in her guts like an old bullet. Private.
sometimes she still feels as if she’s a mistaken jigsaw piece who found her way into the wrong puzzle.
Tova wonders sometimes if it’s better that way, to have one’s tragedies clustered together, to make good use of the existing rawness. Get it over with in one shot. Tova knew there was a bottom to those depths of despair. Once your soul was soaked through with grief, any more simply ran off, overflowed, the way maple syrup on Saturday-morning pancakes always cascaded onto the table whenever Erik was allowed to pour it himself.
With the bucket comes a sensation of total nothingness, which, in most ways, is more pleasant than the everything-ness.
Secrets are everywhere. Some humans are crammed full of them. How do they not explode? It seems to be a hallmark of the human species: abysmal communication skills. Not that any other species are much better, mind you, but even a herring can tell which way the school it belongs to is turning and follow accordingly. Why can humans not use their millions of words to simply tell one another what they desire?
Marcellus trails an arm out each side of the bucket like he’s riding in a car with the windows down. Tova laughs. “The breeze feels nice, doesn’t it?”
“We must say goodbye, friend. But I’m glad Terry saved you, because you saved me.”
Humans. For the most part, you are dull and blundering. But occasionally, you can be remarkably bright creatures.
