I could end this with a moral, as if this were a fable about animals, though no fables are really about animals. - Margaret Atwood

"None of them was willing to be a girl," he said. "You can see why not."
"I know, right? I don't blame them," she said with a hard edge to her voice. "Being a girl is the pits, trust me."

The objects I chose were designed to hold something, but I didn't fill them up. They remained empty. They were little symbolic shrines to thirst.

Instead of this, I tell what I hope will pass as truth. A blunt thing, not lovely. The truth is seldom welcome, especially at dinner, though I am good at what I do. My trade is courage and atrocities. I look at them and do not condemn. I write things down the way they happened, as near as can be remembered. I don’t ask why, because it is mostly the same. Wars happen because the ones who start them think they can win.