Affinity

by Sarah Waters

Pa used to say that any piece of history might be made into a tale: it was only a question of deciding where the tale began, and where it ended.

To forget words, common words, because your habits are so narrow you need only know a hundred hard phrases

you are not empty. You are full—only shut quite tight, and fastened like a box. What do you have here that you must keep locked up like that?’

Give me a name that will be something—give me a secret name, a name that has, not the worst of you, but the best

Now it is two o’clock—another hour gone. How quickly it passes, on the page! I have lived a year, to-night.