Landing

...sentences swallowed and sung back and swallowed all over again. She was made entirely out of words.

It was like wanting ice cream instead of meat loaf, and being told that children in refugee camps would be grateful for the meat loaf. Yes, of course she had nothing to complain about, compared to so many people, but when had that ever stopped anyone from complaining? Happiness was a balloon that always hovered just out of arm's reach.

Their next reunion shifted like an oasis on the horizon, and Jude couldn't plot her course. She trudged through her days, haunted by the feeling that real life was happening five thousand kilometers away.

She was with Jude so rarely that when she was, every cell of her body rang with grateful knowledge of it.

The human mind needs boundaries. Without them it would fall in on itself, like a crushed honeycomb.