The Incendiaries

faith-and-doubt

• I used to preach that God holds us on a lightweight leash… I think of the hours you spent in that Olympic pool. It would be such an artful ruse, Phoebe.

  KWON-INC-RC-103

• They'd each come to him broken, desperate for healing… he'd reshaped himself in his disciples' image. He picked up a handful of dirt. The truth is—

  KWON-INC-RC-092

grief

• The truth is, it still feels as though, if I wait long enough, she'll return… what I most wish to have again is not, at this point, available.

  KWON-INC-RC-050

• It was like high school, after the crash, when even close friends had failed to ask about it: afraid to remind me I was grieving. They hadn't known it wasn't possible to forget.

  KWON-INC-RC-043

shame

• I was ashamed… I wanted a new life, so I invented it. I wish I hadn't lied to you, Phoebe, but with anyone else, if the option came up, I'd do it again.

  KWON-INC-RC-062

desire

• Even as I slid a nail up the ridged line of the real Phoebe's spine, those previous versions, ghostly but alive, crowded around us.

  KWON-INC-RC-021