"People who are all alone have every right to be friends with one another. ("The Honeymoon Of Mrs. Smith" - Version 1)" - Shirley Jackson

In the darkness their feet felt that they were going downhill, and each privately and perversely accused the other of taking, deliberately, a path they had followed together once before in happiness.

There had not been this many words sounded in our house for a long time, and it was going to take a while to clean them out.

She brought herself away from the disagreeably clinging thought by her usual method - imagining the sweet sharp sensation of being burned alive.