The cake had a trick candle that wouldn't go out, so I didn't get my wish. Which was just that it would always be like this, that my life could be a party just for me.

“She was sitting cross-legged on her bed in her white kimono, writing in a noteb…”

“echo, the death of a sound that had nowhere to go but to come back.”

“Wima and Josephine. Well okay then. Okay.”

“I nodded. A man's world. But what did it mean? That men whistled and stared and…”