Elsa Honea

“Nothing remains.  The destruction is complete: love, lives, families, friends, cities, homes – all gone now.  All our efforts to be good, to do the right thing, to act well, to be just and generous are now for naught.  Because juxtaposed against any hope for fairness is wickedness, pure and simple.  In some abstract formulation these things may exist in equal measure, which is to say that the scales balance when taking all things into consideration. But that is fantasy, the stuff of religion, hope beyond all reason. Because for those caught in the whirlwind, in the chaos of manifest evil, despair is all there is. Civilization falls away: everything is pointless now.  Survival requires reciprocity. What then if there is none?”
― John Payton Foden, Magenta

“The steps leading to the porch looked worn, cracked, and unpainted, ready for a nice hot fire.”
― Gabriel F.W. Koch, Death Leaves a Shadow

“Somethings wrong,’ he told her.
‘Be specific Jack,’ she said pressuring him.
Jack turned again to the desert. ‘We should already be dead,’ he said. ‘That’s what’s wrong.”
― A.R. Merrydew, The Girl with the Porcelain Lips

“I prefer death to dishonor for me and my child.”
― Gabriel F.W. Koch, Steel Blood