“Let’s hope it lasts!” Wide eyes unblinking, she quotes Napoleon’s mother, her, as though everything is fine. As though we’re in a palace of some kind, where everyone is laughing, and everyone is eating, and everyone is connected to Zuckerbook, and everyone has everything they desire, and everyone is making love, and everyone is even singing, and no one has to trek tens of thousands of kilometers to find even one ounce of hope, to survive....

“Hey!” says Mom. “It’s seven o’clock already. You’re going to be late!” “Just another minute,” I mutter, and turn onto my other side. “Get up, this instant! The pancakes are getting cold.” Meanwhile, the bed begins to deflate and sag under me....

Manuela was an astronaut; Alyosha, a cosmonaut. She was too headstrong; he, too cautious. She routinely dismissed all of his worries. He always mansplained her every opinion. She had stolen his position as Mission Commander; he’d stolen the love of her life....

What gets you about the enormous Space Station is the design. It’s built by and for the thousands of different alien species—yes, I know, we’re not supposed to call them aliens, we’re the real aliens, blah, blah—that shamble, flit, and ooze all around you....

Atop the immaculate tower of ivory, Pale souls revolve like constellations. They eulogize their own eternal and glorious passing. They shed crystalline tears that leave no path on any face. Their long and lonely journey will birth their own destruction. On the immaculate tower of ivory, There exists no impurity, no sin....

He had a lot of work to do, a hell of a lot of work. Arthur barely managed to get the time off—in the end he simply backed his boss into a corner—either I get my twenty-four hours of leave or I submit my resignation—yeah, that’s right....