He’s figured it out. The only way out is to swim, to break water, to surface. It is a long way up, that is how far we have drowned.

Hers is a country of dead people. All those graves scattered over the hill, the white crosses, the angels with their hands on their chests, the pinwheels that spin over children’s graves.

It tasted lemony, a smudge of sweet acid on the tip of her tongue, hot from the sun where it had been growing until the moment she plucked it.

When they come to see the stove, they inhale a simultaneous woosh, the kind of sound that only comes from air moving into the lungs through a constricted trachea, just a hint of a vibration in the back of the throat.

Julia was a single mom, so she did what she had to do.

I am my father’s pusher. Just this once, tonight. Mash the button.

My mom acted like she was just one good fuck away from becoming a millionaire.

Six hours and counting. Six hours until she touched down in another world, another life.

Mr. Dai called to inform his wife that he would be leaving directly from work to pick their daughter up from the airport this evening, so Mrs. Dai would have to buy the fish herself.