Status Updates From In Memory of Memory

"I asked my mother one of those questions you only ask at that age: 'What are you most scared of?' I don’t know what kind of response I expected...She said: 'I’m afraid of the violence that can destroy a person.' Years passed, decades. Now I am the one who fears this same violence that can destroy a person."

"The presence of terror even seems to invigorate. It forces its way into the reality of the scurrying a very particular jittery sensation, bubbling like seltzer, a fresh breeze over the river, the morning lightness of those who survived the night..."

"... I was traveling over the turbid dark waters of a lake in a flimsy little vessel, leaning down to the lip of the water, and the waxen rounds of heads were rising up from the depths...floating up like pelmeni do, bobbing at the edges of the pan of boiling water...I had to pull those closest to me with a heavy boat hook...Their lips moved, but they made no sound, and none of mine were among them."

"...people find each other through loss and damage: holes, rents in the fabric, participants in a common fate."