·
Beyond the window, I see their sedan parked out front and notice the stickers plastered all over it, all the places they’ve been to together, and I think about how nice it must be to travel with someone, to do something like that; collect stickers you can plaster all over your car. You can drive…
·
The café where they sit, makes the best espresso in town, so strong it gives you goosebumps. It’s why she’d insisted on meeting there and not at that other, cheaper place on the Prinsengracht Ella prefers. Such are the insignificant details on which decisions turn. Fateful, only when you look back.
·
‘ESO 378 Nebula,’ he says. ‘ESO, that means it was taken by the European Southern Observatory. The number, well, that’s for identification. And nebula, that’s the classification. It tells you what it is.’
·
‘Antarctica,’ she says. The word, cool on her lips, like a brush of springtime air. It reminds her of Edgar, though she can’t think why. Did he ever go to Antarctica? She can’t imagine he ever did, but now, as she stares at the tablecloth, she can’t be sure.
·
‘He looked at the field and tried to imagine it. Not just the colour, but the smell, the movement. Real flowers would have swayed in the breeze. He knew that much.’
