“The woman was a catastrophe,” Carlos told me at the time. “But she was as honest as my face is ugly.”

Hitting up homes peopled by those with nothing much to lose was an easy score. The less you had, the less likely you were to defend it. But this home was different. Its residents had a lot to lose and the will to fight for it.

She said I would find my perfect love when on the brink of death.

The most entertaining thing about Miguel is that when he was 13 he dislocated his shoulder playing basketball and can now pop it in and out of place. There is nothing particularly interesting about Miguel.

I eat my Oreos with relish. No—I mean I relish in the Oreos I eat.

I don’t know why I was still talking about the rapture. I certainly didn’t believe in it. Regardless, it remained a thief…

And then he feels that familiar sensation of drifting—when his body untethers from the material world and he soon dissolves into a fine, floating mist that evaporates into the atmosphere.

Darkness always follows.

My new neighbor is making a violin from a cigar box. He got the cigar box from a guard. The guard, presumably, got it from outside the Fence.

A tortured simper uncoils itself across my mouth as I open another bottle of Penis wine.

Before the headaches began, I thought myself sturdy: firm in my foundations, set square like a saltbox house.

I point my camera towards B. Lovely and she is sitting on the curb.

You’ve been dreading this day since the moment you found out you were pregnant—perhaps even before.