The snow whispered down in the stillness and the sparks rose and dimmed and died in the eternal blackness.

He spoke into a blackness without depth or dimension.

You can think of me as a faithless slut if you like. I've taken a new lover. He can give me what you cannot.Death is not a lover.Oh yes he is.

The ashes of the late world carried on the bleak and temporal winds to and fro in the void.

The faintly lit hatchway lay in the dark of the yard like a grave yawning at judgement day in some old apocalyptic painting.

At the farther edge of the town they came upon a solitary house in a field and they crossed and entered and walked through the rooms. They came upon themselves in a mirror and he almost raised the...

In those first years the roads were peopled with refugees shrouded up in their clothing. Wearing masks and goggles, sitting in their rags by the side of the road like ruined aviators. Their barrows...

OK. This is what the good ones do. Keep trying. They never give up.

It took two days to cross that ashen scabland. The road beyond ran along the crest of a ridge where the barren woodland fell away on every side. It's snowing, the boy said. He looked at the sky. A...

In the draws the smoke coming off the ground like mist and the thin black trees burning on the slopes like heathen candles.

The road crossed a dried slough where pipes of ice stood out of the frozen mud like formations in a cave. The remains of an old fire by the side of the road. Beyond that a long concrete causeway. A...

Remember just that the things you put in your head will remain in it forever

People were still preparing for tomorrow. I didn't believe it. Tomorrow was not preparing for them. He didn't even know they were there.

The nights now only slightly less black. By day the banished sun circles the earth like a grieving mother with a lamp.

Do you think I lie to you?No.But you think I might lie to you about dying.Yes.Okay. I might. But we're not dying.Okay.

They stood on the far shore of a river and called to him. Tattered gods slouching in their rags across the waste. Trekking the dried floor of a mineral sea where it lay cracked and broken like a...

They say that women dream of danger to those in their care and men of danger to themselves. But I dont dream at all.

Tell us where the world went.

The boy was sitting quietly on the bunk, still wrapped in the blanket, watching. The man thought he had probably not fully committed himself to any of this. You could wake in the dark wet woods at any...

They went on in the perfect blackness, sightless as the blind.

We'll just take it one step at a time.Okay.Don't let go.Okay.No matter what.No matter what.

What's the bravest thing you ever did?Getting up this morning, he said.

He walked to the top of a rise and crouched and watched the day accrue. The chary dawn, the cold illucid world.

We're going to be okay, aren't we Papa?Yes. We are.And nothing bad is going to happen to us.That's right.Because we're carrying the fire.Yes. Because we're carrying the fire.

The mummied dead everywhere. The flesh cloven along the bones, the ligaments dried to tug and taut as wires. Shriveled and drawn like latterday bogfolk, their faces of boiled sheeting, the yellowed...

The crushing black vacuum of the universe. And somewhere two hunted animals trembling like ground-foxes in their cover. Borrowed time and borrowed world and borrowed eyes with which to sorrow it.

The man thought he seemed some sad and solitary changeling child announcing the arrival of a traveling spectacle in shire and village who does not know that behind him the players have all been...

Do you remember that little boy, Papa? Yes. I remember him. Do you think he's all right that little boy? Oh yes. I think he's all right. Do you think he was lost? No. I don't think he was lost. I'm...

People are always getting ready for tomorrow. I didn't believe in that. Tomorrow wasn't getting ready for them. It didn't even know they were there.

Ten thousand dreams ensepulchered within their crozzled hearts.