“
Armor was what it was, the pair bond, marriage: something enclosing them that offered protection. But it was not metal, finally, it was far too flimsy . . . at different moments in a life you had these companions, blurring around you like figures in stop-motion photography: mother, father, friends of his youth, wife, daughter. Gone. Not one of them forever. He was riveted by the pain of this flashing away, this dimming. He would die from it, die from being alone.
”
”