Stephen Snyder

Though I’ve tried, I’ve found no way to fill in the voids left by the Memory Police.

They carefully dismantled the flowers, petal by petal, and slipped them quietly into the stream.

While they had covered the narrow river in impressive fashion, they vanished almost instantly in the vastness of the ocean, sucked under by the waves.

He tapped the deck with the toe of his shoe, which was old but sturdy, and so well worn it might almost have been part of the old man himself.

the island will soon be nothing but absences and holes, and when it’s completely hollowed out, we’ll all disappear without a trace.

“I think my mother must have loved the sound of water. Not crashing waves but the gentle flowing of the river—which is probably why she also bought the cottage upstream

The front of the house is along the road to the south, but in back, to the north, it faces the river. The stone foundation was set down into the water, with the house built on top, so the basement is actually below the level of the water.”

my heart feels like a silkworm slumbering in its cocoon

“It could cost you your life itself.”

“The little I have left,”

Once you know, there’s always the chance that the secret will leak out.