Half of the time I don’t know what they’re talking about; their jokes seem to relate to a past that everyone but me has shared. I’m a foreigner in the world and I don’t understand...

That porch is a happy-looking place, and my father – burdened, stoop-shouldered, cadaverously thin – doesn’t seem to belong on it.

The unfortunate 8075 hadn’t survived his assault, splintering apart, fragments of its casing skittering across the bench. The battery within had split along its plane, revealing something as out-of-place as a missile in a bathtub.