CJ Thomas

“Now the flesh arranges itself differently. I’m a cloud, congealed around a central object, the shape of a pear, which is hard and more real than I am and glows red within its translucent wrapping. Inside it is a space, huge as the sky at night and dark and curved like that, though black-red rather than black. Pinpoints of light swell, sparkle, burst and shrivel within it, countless as stars. Every month there is a moon, gigantic, round, heavy, an omen. It transits, pauses, continues on and passes out of sight, and I see despair coming towards me like famine. To feel that empty, again, again. I listen to my heart, wave upon wave, salty and red, continuing on and on, marking time.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale

“The back is ramrod straight. It would be the most uncomfortable chair that Chris had ever sat in, had he not just made the flight to Cyprus on Ryanair.”
― Richard Osman, The Thursday Murder Club