Anna Starobinets

spent all of those forty minutes in the corridor, watching the females going through various office doors, all stressed, irritated, accustomed to the terror of the discovery that awaited them, trying to prepare themselves for the worst, but all the same stubbornly clinging on to the best

The empties move with the smooth and swift gait of dancers, as if they have become slimmer, as if they have been made lighter by the emptiness swirling round inside them. The others step heavily, as if they have put on weight instantaneously. Their gaze is turned inward;

Don’t get worked up, I’ve read the Book of Life too and learned the key passages off by heart. But a fact is a fact. The population of the Living has changed and is now three billion and one. And that ‘one’ is your Darling with his ‘void’ incode. I am afraid you have no idea how serious this is. So far no one does