Like many isolated people, they were wrapped up in themselves and not too interested in the world outside. - V. S. Naipaul

doing many more things until it seemed that ritual had replaced grief.

Confronted with her, I shed old fantasies. My body obeyed its new impulses, discovered in itself resources that answered my new need.

...Anand, look at the back of my hands. No hair. The sign of an advanced race, boy. And look at yours. No hair either. But you never know. With some of your mother's bad blood flowing in your veins you could wake up one morning and find yourself hairy like a monkey