I think she is confused by the way I want her, which is like nobody else. I know this deep down. I want her in a new way, a way she's never been told… - Louise Erdrich

"i want to hear what's happened to you," she said evenly after a while. she gestured in the direction, down river, of the butcher shop. "it's just that there is nowhere else to start," she said gently. "niether of us is the same. but i'm different because of small, good, manageable things. you're different because ... things i don't know."

The first thing that happens at the end of the world is that we don’t know what is happening.

Everything ceased. She listened hard. Nothing, nothing, nothing. But she could feel the calm breathing of the night. She put on her mother’s mitts, took the ax, stepped out the door. Outside, there was resounding silence. The black sky was a poem beyond meaning.