Alex McCullough

“She thought she could feel herself begin to depart with him, the two of them rising together, translucent as jellyfish, and release, flying until they reached a bright, bright spaceship—a set of teeth on fire in the dark—and, absorbed into the larger light, were taken aboard for home. "And what on earth was all that?" she could hear them both say merrily of their lives, as if their lives were now just odd, noisy, and distant, as in fact they were.”
― Lorrie Moore, Birds of America: Stories

“They haven't had a thing to say about it, these ducks, thinks Mack, haven't done a thing to deserve it, but there they are, God's lilies, year-round in a giant hotel, someone caring for them the rest of their lives. All the other birds of the world—the mange-hollowed hawks, the lordless hens, the dumb clucks—will live punishing, unblessed lives, winging it north, south, here, there, searching for a place of rest. But not these. Not these rich, lucky ducks! graced with rug and stairs, upstairs and down, roof to pool to penthouse, always steered, guided, welcomed toward those golden elevator doors like a heaven's mouth, and though it isn't really a heaven's mouth, it is maybe the lip of all there is.”
― Lorrie Moore, Birds of America: Stories

“The simplest discussion—of doorjambs or gutters—made his blood move around his face and neck like a lava lamp.”
― Lorrie Moore, Birds of America: Stories

“The Mother has begun to cry: all of life has led her here, to this moment. After this, there is no more life. There is something else, something stumbling and unlivable, something mechanical, something for robots, but not life. Life has been taken and broken, quickly, like a stick.”
― Lorrie Moore, Birds of America: Stories